Catching Snowflakes

I tried the "catching snowflake" portrait lesson that I first saw here but wanted to make it my own. Instead of painting a jacket on their person, I had the students create a paper loom on the sweater portion and weave the sweater. This provided an authentic extension into weaving.

Luckily I had these students in first grade and they were already familiar with weaving. We used the thickness of a a ruler to make vertical stripes starting at the neck and shoulders to the bottom. Then they wove 1.5" paper strips through. I had them slide each strip to the top and glue it into place before adding another strip. At the bottom they had to glue each section to create a sturdy base.

We also did a mini-lesson on symmetry before they made their paper snowflakes. This lesson took 3 (40-minute) sessions.