Fish weaving, kindergarten

Kindergarteners learn the over and under pattern of weaving using a tropical fish as our inspiration. We look at some colorful examples in nature before making our loom “bodies” and weaving the paper strips.  We start by drawing the biggest oval we can and cut it out, saving the scraps for the end. While the students are coloring the faces, I go around the room and fold the papers and draw the lines on the body that become the warp strips, or the cuts that we weave through. The kids cut the lines and open up the papers, then weaving begins. We finish it off with some construction paper fins and tails and more shapes and patterns. Construction paper crayons are great for this lesson since they hold their color on a non-white paper.