Thursday, March 24, 2011

Feltmaking in Primary School

I was delighted to be able to teach a basic feltmaking workshop to lovely class from St. Brigid's National School in Limerick.

Each class was run for four weeks, two hours each week. This was my first, experience in teaching a large group of children in different ages (there were 17 pupils in each). Before that I run some volunatry workshops for adults and kids in Limerick community centre and some individual workshops in my studio. 

In preparation for the workshop I went to buy loads of sushi mats, and got a very surprised glance in Tesco as I was buying 20 sushi mats at once! I also had to order special Bonsai tree sprinklers, to be shipped from Germany cause these are nowhere to be seen in Limerick.

We were lucky to be able to work on tiled floor, but despite that the kids were usually soaked by the time we finished. Firstly because of the easiness with which you can sprinkle the water from the sprinklers, and the fact that the kids had to sit, as the floor got wet and increasingly slippery. There are no easy solutions there but to explain that one has to use as little water as possible! The other solution is to use sponges. So I can recommend sponges for younger children whilst sprinklers could be used with the older ones and preferably for a large project. Finally one can use loads of old towels to remove the excess of water.

Based on this experience I have got some interesting conclusions to share:

- In my opinion it is possible to teach kids how to make good quality felt, finished to a specific standard
- that if a child had a previous artistic experience, such as playing instruments or painting, he or she may find it easier to deal with fluffy wool
- that it is important to show that feltmaking could result in making something useful and potentially sealable
- that it is important to teach step by step, making sure that each person has arrived to the same stage in the process, otherwise everything falls apart and some children would end up over-felting their projects.

I taught my class, how to make simple key-rings, a mobile phone pouch, some wool painting and simple flowers. At the end of the course I have gathered the pre-felted paintings to make a large wall hanging in my studio.

Here is the photo before the felting started. Laying on the floor is the prefelt, with the intividual paintings. Its messy!



Finished hanging drying in the sun


Next day I met up with the class to reveal the wall hanging. I was emotional. I saw their faces and I knew they liked it!

The school has got the permission to build an extension so the wall hanging will be placed in the hall of the new building!

Here is myself explaining the process:


Many thanks to Betty, the principal of St. Bridgit's School for facilitating this workshop!

12 comments:

joannafelt said...

Amazing and wonderful :)

FabulousFelt by Kate Ramsey said...

no podziekowal!

Helen + ilana - Hi said...

Hi Kate. Well done you! I love teaching kids. I'm about to do a wallhanging with 22 students in Class 3/4 at our local Waldorf school. Just finished slippers with Class 7. Loved the photos! Blessings

FabulousFelt by Kate Ramsey said...

Thanks, my class was requesting slippers! next time I shall make these! Kids can make anything they have great abilities!

FabulousFelt by Kate Ramsey said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
KerryFelter said...

I did a felting day with my son's class in December and it's fun but very hard work! They are so excited that you almost have to slow them down so they don't overwork the fibres and shift the design before it starts taking hold! But I'll do it again because they were so thrilled with it. Finished project was great!

Anonymous said...

very nice Kate :)
There is nothing like working with children and sharing with them the magic of felt.
regards,
Cynthia
in Norway

Lucia Maria Higuchi said...

mY CONGRATULATIONS FOR THI WONDERFULL JOB WITH THE KIDS.

Anonymous said...

Brilliant Kate, the finished wall hanging looks fabulous, congratulations!!! X

FabulousFelt by Kate Ramsey said...

Thanks ladies! Hugs

AWATEA said...

what a beautiful result!!! well done! I would love to work with children and appreciate this posting.

johnnie t said...

this looked an exciting project, you should perhaps train as a teacher, you would do very well i imagine