Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Mexico: Circle weavings and mosaics


Fourth graders are completing a unit on art from Mexico and Central America.  We looked at Aztec suns and Native American moon designs for our inspiration on the circle weavings.  We chose a color scheme for our sun or moon - warm, cool, neutral, analogous, monochromatic - and began our weaving on our paper looms.  For the background, we chose a day or night sky and filled the page with paper mosaic pieces.
A template is very helpful for making your loom correctly, with an odd number of slits


a cool, analogous color scheme

a warm, analogous color scheme

beginning the mosaic for a bright sun






12 comments:

  1. Beautiful art work.
    I love the colors and patterns.
    I will have to try this project.
    How many sessions did you use for this project?

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  2. We have 45 minute classes, so it breaks down like this: day 1 - powerpoint intro, cutting paper looms, designing the face; day 2 - weaving (most finished in one session); day 3 - finishing up weaving, start mosaic; day 4 - completing mosaic, most finished in first half of class.
    I could have spent longer on this, but there are so many standards to pack in, I rarely spend more than 3 sessions on anything.

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  3. I suspected you needed more than one session.
    It is a beautiful project. I did like how you connected the history lesson with colors schemes, patterns and weaving.

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  4. Is the "loom" a paper plate or maybe card stock? What did you use for the mosaic base? thanks for sharing your great ideas!

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  5. it's actually all construction paper... the loom, the base, everything but the yarn.

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  6. I've never seen circle weaving done this way. Nice, thanks!

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  7. Angie, I did the paper plate one with the string warp one year and they turned out nicely in the end, but a HUGE pain starting out - the warp string was really difficult to do without knotting and tangling and it set a bad mood for the rest of the project. This was so much simpler.

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  8. How small was the inner circle...how large was the outer circle?

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    1. I made the outer circle 8", so the pattern would fit on a standard copy sheet. The inner circle is about 3 1/4".

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  9. Would you mind sending me the template? We are studying Mexico and this would be a great addition to our crafts. deerobeano@gmail.com

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    1. Hi Deanna - unfortunately I don't have a digital template to send you or I would be happy to. It's a very easy template to make if you copy the one in the pic above. I traced a large circle on a sheet of copy paper with 11 (or any odd number) slits. Good luck to you!

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  10. How do kids start the weaving? With a knot and then every other one?

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