For the past year, we’ve been learning to weave at work. And this coming week, I’m presenting on arts-based methods in language learning at the DeCoda Literacy Conference. I’ve decided to incorporate a very easy activity that we learned from the first weaver we worked with: paper weaving. It’s a simple way to explain the warp and the weft. She used magazine strips to great effect; I’ll just use construction paper. There are plenty of how-to videos on Youtube if you are interested. What I love about this activity is you can be very precise and measure all your strips and borders, or you can just freely cut (my way) and it still turns out pretty. It is very forgiving for those of us who lack confidence in our artistic skills. Another trick I’ve discovered, when you throw anything into a frame, it elevates the work!