Weaving with 3-year-olds

I didn't really know what to expect.  Enthusiasm? Ability? Apathy? Well, with this age group, if you introduce a new idea and a new tool, you're pretty unlikely to be met with apathy.  The kids picked up the skill of weaving quite well.  Not only that, they loved it!  What a thrill it is to learn a brand-new skill you have never tried before, and to master it.  They started counting how many strands of yarn they had woven, calling out, "I've got 5!"  "Now I've got 8!"  (emergent math skills, yes?)

If you'd like to try weaving with your young friends, these simple boards were wonderfully effective.  They are rectangles of cardboard.  On two side, I cut slits about 1 inch apart.  I strung yarn back and forth to make the form.  I think it's important that the yard on the form are about an inch apart, because it makes it easy for fingers the size of preschoolers to pinch (fine motor skills, refined) in the space in between them.

In order to learn the skill, we practiced over-under-over-under (also learning a valuable mathematical skill).  The tricky part that I do not feel is essential for learning (especially the first time) is that you start each strand the opposite that you started the former one.  Some kids got this, and others didn't.  I consider them both successful.

And, to be clear, also successful are the kids who chose numerous other materials to weave in and out and over and under in anything-but tidy rows.  Even balls of various objects represent success.  They made something to be proud of, and used their own vision and creativity to do it, and that's what matters.