Once we attended a party and at the end of it, the host wanted to throw all the unused paper plates away. Before he did that, we requested to take them home for re-use. Paper plates are very useful especially when it comes to art lessons. There are tons of paper plate crafts online that we can follow and make with our children during free time or for relaxation. Today, we are making use of the paper plate for weaving, or should we say paper plate weaving.
Materials required:
– different colored wools
– scissors
– poster/watercolors
– paint brush
– pencils
– paper plate
Before we start, smarties would need to come up with a story theme to be drawn on the paper plate. The purpose of the story theme is for them to have a something to focus on and to bring out a message in their own way. Gor gor wanted to do a superhero theme (as usual), and mei mei wanted to do a nursery rhyme theme titled “I had a little nut tree”.
Excitedly, they started drawing the pictures on the paper plates. Mei mei always gets distracted whenever she is doing something with her brother. She kept on peeping at how gor gor was doing and checking on his progress. Yes, that’s my little supervisor there.
Right after the drawing was done, smarties would select their preferred colors for their story. It’s always interesting to observe how the children select their colors for their drawings as the colors selected usually represent the personality of a person. So far, smarties had not been changing their favorite colors that often and that shows how secure their sense of selves are. Research has also been done that shows bright colors related to positive feelings and dark colors related to negative feelings. For more details, you may refer to this link for more info:”The color of emotion“.
Although smarties are old enough to express their feelings or emotions verbally but sometimes they still find it hard to express in words. It is always nice to do art lessons with them to check on how they were feeling. On top of that, art is really therapeutic for them. Over here you can see Mei mei patiently coloring her paper plate and it took her 2 days to complete the coloring. It may sound tiring but she had a huge sense of achievement after completing it and I’m really happy to see that twinkle in her eyes after she had completed it.
The next thing she needed to do was to start weaving. Gor gor at this time was busy with his homework and coming exams. He had requested to continue after the exams and I reluctantly obliged because I preferred him to spend some art time for relaxation. Oh well!
There was a bit of struggle on the weaving part and it took another 2 days for mei mei to complete it. She was on the verge to give up when it got more confused and more difficult when it went down to the narrower part of the “tree”. Finally, with some determination and some encouragement, she made it and completed the whole project without tears. She came running to me showing her final product, beaming with joy and asking for photos to be taken as a memory.
To conclude, although this paper plate weaving project may take a long time to complete for some children but it definitely comes with tons of benefits and there are:
– build their confidence level and determination
– build fine motor skill, hand/eye coordination
– strengthen their muscles through the use of pincer grip during weaving
– made use of both their dominant and non-dominant hands
– build and train their concentration and creativity
– and many more…
So, why not start a weaving project with your child/children now? Do share with us your completed work, we can’t wait to see your beautiful work!
