Ready for afternoon tea
Create your own mat by weaving strips of coloured paper. You could use it as a picnic mat for a teddy bear's picnic or laminate it to make your own placemat.
Time: 20 minutes
Age: Under 5's (with help), 5-10's
Level: Hard
Materials
Two sheets A4 coloured construction paper
Starting materials
Cut one sheet of paper lengthways into strips approximately 2cm wide
Cut slits in middle of the second sheet of paper leaving a border around the edge of the paper. Make sure you don't cut right to the edge of the paper. An easy way to do this is to fold a piece of paper in half and cut slits up from the fold towards the paper edges. Then open up your piece of paper again.
Try folding a sheet of paper in half and cut slits from the fold towards the edges. Then open up the paper again
Feed one of the strips through the slits going under then over then under then over etc.
Push the strip carefully up towards the top of the sheet of paper
Repeat with a second strip, this time going over the first slit then under then over then under etc.
Push the strip carefully up to the top of the paper next to your first strip.
Repeat with more strips until there is no more space
Now bend any of the ends over to the back of the paper and fix with glue or sticky tape. THis ensures that the front of the mat looks neat.
Turn over and your mat is now finished. If you want to have a more durable mat, you could laminate it using an A4 laminating pouch and laminating machine.
Upload a picture of your teddies enjoying a picnic on your woven paper mat via the comments section.
Categories
#Hard
#Under 5s
#5 to 10's
#Placemat
#Paper
#Weaving
