This was a fail.
My plan was for the kids to make air dry clay birds, (not a fail), and put them in nest they created by making yarn bowls and then weaving thread, ribbon, scraps of fabric, sticks, and whatever else their imaginations could dream up and I had available from my hoard.
I thought it would be great addition to the clay project in the Birds of a Feather camp.
9 year old
And they were, but they needed a little help from me to make it to fruition and now I know (and lucky for you, you know!) what I will need to do differently next time. Because they are quite wonderful and the kids had a good time weaving into them, so I know with a small modification this will be a win/win project instead of a win/eh project.
rising Phenix, 6 year old
After the kids had created their birds out of air dry clay. They got to work creating the yarn bowls. I have done this project before with great success so wasn't really worried about the outcome and thought I was quite brilliant adding a weaving element to it.
8 year old
And that my friends is what tripped me up.
The weaving.
Creating a yarn bowl is very simple. You need a bowl. You turn it upside down and cover it in plastic wrap, or spray oil, or both if you are OCD and mix up a bowl with equal parts white glue and water. Then you simply let the kids dip lengths of yarn into the glue, removed the excess and string it around the bowl until their hearts are content.
When it's dry, pop the yarn off the bowl and ta da! A yarn bowl!
Or in this case a yarn nest.
7 year old
So if you think these birds are as wonderful as I do and can't wait to try it with your own kids, here is where you can learn from my mistake.
Don't skimp on adding the yarn. Don't panic that there won't be enough room between the gaps for the kids to weave.
Let them add LOTS and LOTS of yarn to make the bowls nice and stable.
7 year old
I had the kids do about half the yarn I would usually do I was so concerned about the room for weaving. This was completely unnecessary and when I pulled the bowls off they went as limp as my hair does on a humid southern afternoon.
not good.
My first extinct was to look at the cute newly painted birds and just chuck the "yarn plates", they were certainly lovely enough on their own. However I knew the kids were really excited about those bowls and so I frantically started trying to figure out how to salvage them.
In the end, I took some twine and began to pull edges together and knot it until I had a bowl shape. Each 'bowl' needed about 7-10 knots to make that happen. I was finishing up as the kids arrived and explained what had happened because we all learn from mistakes.
I'm also a huge proponent of "embracing the mistakes" and so shared what had happened, how I had resolved it, and we all agreed that the twine added a nice touch to the nest feel of the project.
Not that I would recommend you do that but it was nice for the kids to see that even the art teacher has to "embrace the mistake" sometimes and use a bit of imagination to create something wonderful.
5 year old
In the end, the kids were able to weave into the nest. As you can see in the above nest, some even added some eggs made out of wadded paper and masking tape.
In spite of my blunder, the kids were quite happy with their birds and the nest.
Most importantly it was, although I hate to admit my mistake, a great lesson that even adults have to work through mishaps and trust with a little imagination and creative problem solving one can come up with something still awesome in the end.
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