Sewing With Yarn
Use a hole punch to punch holes around the edges of paper plates. Give each child a plastic needle with a piece of yarn threaded through it. (Plastic needles are available at craft stores.) Show the children how to use their needles and yarn to "sew" around their plates.
Yarn Bubbles
Blow up a small balloon for each child. Mix equal parts of liquid starch and glue together in Styrofoam food trays. Cut different colors of yarn into long pieces. Let the children dip the yarn pieces into the starch and glue mixture and wrap them around their balloons. Hang the balloons to dry. When the yarn has completely dried, pop the balloons and carefully remove them.
Dyeing Yarn
Put different colors of food coloring into clear plastic cups and add small amounts of water. Give the children 6-inches of thick white yarn. Ask the children to guess what will happen with they put their yarn into the food coloring. Then have them dip their yarn pieces into different colors of "dye". Allow the yarn pieces to dry on sheets of newspaper, then let the children sort them by color.
Yarn Day
Have the children bring things from home that have been made from yarn. Let each child talk about his or her item. Ask the children to describe the different colors, textures and uses of the articles they have brought.
Yarn Circle Fun
Give each child a 4-foot piece of yarn. Show the children how to form large circles on the floor with their pieces of yarn. Then ask the children to follow directions such as these: "Place your right food inside your circle. Place your left elbow inside your circle. Jump into your circle. Walk around your circle."
Color Bracelets
Use small pieces of green, yellow, red and blue yarn to make bracelets. Place the yarn bracelets in a bucket. Let each child take a colored bracelet out of the bucket, name the color and slip it over his or her wrist. Then have the children sit in a circle. Ask them to listen carefully as you sing the song below and to raise their hands when they hear the color names of the bracelets they are wearing.
Sung to : "If You're Happy and You Know It"
If you're wearing green today,
Raise your hand
If you're wearing yellow today,
Raise your hand.
If you're wearing red today,
Then raise your hand -- hurray!
If you're wearing blue today,
Raise your hand.
Repeat, each time changing the order of the color names.
Yarn Shapes
Use glue and pieces of yarn to create a different shape on each of five index cards. Draw matching shapes with felt-tip markers on five additional index cards. Give the cards to the children and let them take turns finding the matching pairs of shapes.
Mary Had a Wooly Lamb
Sung to : "Mary Had a Little Lamb"
Mary had a wooly lamb,
Wooly lamb, wooly lamb.
Mary had a wooly lamb,
Its wool was white as snow.
Its wool got thick and very heavy,
Very heavy, very heavy.
Its wool got thick and very heavy,
So its fleece was sheared.
The wool was soon made into yarn,
Into yarn, into yarn.
The wool was soon make into yarn,
And woven into cloth.
Now Mary has a wooly coat,
Wooly coat, wooly coat.
Now Mary has a wooly coat,
That she wears to school.