I based our lesson on this Pinterest post:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/458241330812794990/
{an acronym of the word Friends, with the letters standing for different aspects of respect and friendship.}
I also included in the lesson the idea that all people are our Heavenly Father's children, and our brothers and sisters. Christ had one rule for everyone and that was: love one another as I have loved you. So we have the opportunity daily to treat others with kindness and dignity and that should be our basic goal.
I hid the little cards shown in the Pinterest post around the room and had the girls do a quick search for them, then we discussed each aspect briefly, in order, and stuck them up on the board.
Then we made friendship bracelets!
Thank you Pinterest, for making my life easier! We used the method highlighted here (great pictures on her blog!): https://www.pinterest.com/pin/458241330816051481/
Once you get the hang of it, it goes really fast and many of the girls were able to get a bracelet halfway completed, one or two got theirs all the way done. Also one or two left with only an inch or so finished, but those were the ones doing a lot of chatting! I heard from many parents that bracelet weaving continued at home and many extra bracelets were made!
MUSIC made this super enjoyable. We played some favorite tunes while we were weaving, and it was a fun and relaxing way to spend time together.
I put the instructions on index cards for the girls to take home. You can download a PDF of this file here:
I made a few tweaks to the method shown in the Pinterest post above. They really helped with the speed of the project.
The first improvement I made was to change the circle from cardboard to craft foam.
- The original card board circle (which I made first) was stiffer and easier to hold, and made a "tighter" weave to the bracelet... BUT it had the major flaw of catching and snagging at the thread each time you moved it.
- The foam circle was easier to make (to cut the center hole, I just folded it in half, did a small snip, folded it in half the other way, snip, and that little plus shaped opening was perfect to hold the strands), plenty easy to hold, and, although it did result in a slightly looser weave, it was overall not a noticeable difference. Add to that the foam caused ZERO SNAGGING, and we had a winner!
- This meant that instead of turning the circle each time, or counting over each time, you could just memorize the sequence. SPEED.
- Also, one some circles, I added a secondary number to make it FOOL PROOF (if slot 8 is empty, get the tread from slot 5). Some of the girls really liked this, and some found it confusing. Which slot am I on? 8? or 5? So I mixed methods and put the slot sequence on the BACK of the wheel (for reference if needed) and left the front with just the slot number. The girls who wanted to add the secondary number could easily do so.
- Number sequence: (the first number is the empty slot, the second number is the slot you lift the thread from) 8, 5; 5, 2; 2, 7; 7, 4; 4, 1; 1, 6; 6, 3; 3, 8
As a non-expert weaver I really liked this method. For several reasons:
- You can put down your weaving at any time and it stays in place, PLUS you always know what comes next... no trying to remember which thread you are on
- It was simple to demonstrate/explain to the girls. After just a few times of going through the method together everyone understood it.
- It is very FAST if you memorize the pattern, but doable even if you don't bother and go slow
- It limits your supply needs, with only seven strands of floss needed per bracelet. I thought the bracelets looked best with 2-4 colors, meaning some strands were the same color. You COULD do 7 different colors, but it just looked really busy.
To be fair, there were a few downsides as well, namely:
- It creates a fairly slim bracelet, and there isn't really a good way to make it thicker
- Your pattern changing ability is limited to either multi colored (random) or two colored stripe
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