Teaching wet felting to grade 3 and 4 students - part 4

Well, it all went well, I think.  Some children still had to do the wet part of the felting as they had missed a couple of lessons.  But the rest were given a choice of sewing on their now-dry felt to enhance the image or to make some of the felt beads.  Most chose the ball-making but some worked with the art teacher to do the sewing.  It is so much easier with two adults!

The bead making went reasonably well, especially as it was the first go for them all.  Some made very precise, solid balls (beads) while others made multiple balls that were not as good but were still ok.
I demonstrated making the cord for threading the beads but we ran out of time, looks like I will have to go next week again.
It was interesting to see how different sorts of wool behaved differently.  It was really obvious, some of it had quite short staples and others were much longer.  Some was a bit curly and other wool was not.  It was a good chance to talk about different sheep breeds and how the wool can be used for different purposes.
One child had even gone home and tried felting her dog's fur!  She didn't bring it to show, maybe she can bring it next week.  She did say it was smelly.

Teaching wet felting to grade 3 and 4 students - part 3

I am remembering real teaching - how the best laid plans go awry.  Things to be dealt with: what to do with the few children who have finished the felting process; how to restart the felting process with the others, what to do with them when their work is felted as I think (hope!) that will happen fairly quickly; how to start off the children who have only done the laying out - yes, there are still some at that stage.
The plan had been to sew onto the felt, to emphasise the edges of the shapes and add highlights.  But they won't be able to do that if the felt is still damp, so we will have to do something else. Maybe I can revisit how I made felt beads and we can do that, then do the sewing the following week.  Or we might make some little 3D shapes, I'll have to experiment this week.  Thank goodness I am only doing it once a week and have time to remember how to do things - and how to manage a classroom.  I am enjoying it immensely but I am also getting a much greater appreciation of how hard it is for art teachers, so little time between one class and the next arriving, room needed to store works in progress, planning for students who finish early (or very slowly) and what they can do in such a limited space.

Yet another practice of felt balls and the cord.