Felt bag making with children 1.

I hope that you will look at the bags above and be impressed that they were made by a group of three to six year olds! They are actually quite simple and a lot of fun to make, especially if you like to get wet and bubbly!

This is us working away in the art room.

Wool is a wonderful material for this age group to work with, they love the texture and really enjoy speading the colours in order to blend them. Of course the best part comes a day or two later, when you cut them open for the big reveal!

I have outlined the basic steps below.

1. Help the children to draw and cut out a simple template for the bag, just a simple circle or square is all that is needed, not too big as this will make more work of the child, maybe four or five inches in diameter.
2. if you are working with a group it is a good idea to write their name on the template. This will help later if they all take a shine to the same bag!
3. wrap the template well in cling film, working in both directions, this is to make it as waterproof as possible, though it will soften a little as they work anyway.
4. Template wrapped the children now get to chose their colours, I usually let them work with two. the felt can be broken off the ball gently in sections large enough to go around the entire bag at least once. Spread the colours before you wrap your template so that one will show through the other.
5. Now that the bag is covered in the chosen colours it can now be wrapped in several layers of un-dyed wool or batting. This will be the inside of the bag, it provides the strength so do cover all holes, working in several directions.

part two of this process  to follow!