Teaching Students (or yourself) How to Begin a Coil Basket

A few years ago, before I was teaching in my current district, I decided that I wanted to try to teach 7th graders how to do coil basket weavings. I thought they looked really cool! The only problem...? I had to teach myself first. I tried following a few different sets of directions that I found on the internet, but none of them were thorough enough. They either had too many words and not enough pictures, or too many pictures and not enough written instruction. I quickly became frustrated and gave up.

When I found out that my new district requires us to teach coil basket weaving to our 6th graders, I was immediately filled with dread. Luckily, I had a great mentor who was able to teach me how to do it. I practiced and practiced so that I would be thoroughly prepared to teach my students.

But no amount of practice on my end would help alleviate their confusion in starting this project! Introducing a coil basket weaving is extremely frustrating for all... I even had a few kids in tears- kids who weren't used to "not getting" something on the first try. Remembering my struggles the first time I tried to learn, I decided to make a video that has just the right amount of imagery and text (at least in my opinion). I plan on showing this short PhotoStory to my 6th graders before we begin, in order to set the stage for the process, and then again as we are a few steps in, in order to reinforce the process.