Why Teachers Love Felting in the Classroom

Felting in the classroom is a fun way to integrate earth friendly, hands on projects into your lesson plans!

Most teachers can relate to the struggle to find new ideas and projects to keep themselves and their students engaged in learning and making. As a maker educator with 20 years of experience teaching as a homeschool teacher, in out of school programs and festivals, I love kids and have tons of respect for teachers! One thing I've seen, is that teachers love to learn and explore too, but are often so busy that they don't have time to explore and take part of creative communities outside of work hours. So to save you time, we've taken the time to research and create the best felting projects for a variety of ages and abilities, so you can relax! Many of the projects at the Magic Trout Imaginarium have their roots in open source and maker culture and artistic communities all over Canada and the US.

Teachers love felting in the classroom because its earth friendly, stress relieving and it's incredibly easy to adapt projects to suit all ages and abilities. Over the past 7 years, we've taught teachers all over Canada the art of stabbing, poking, rubbing and felting wool and they absolutely LOVE it! 

What is Felting?

There are many different techniques of felting, but at Magic Trout Imaginarium we focus on 2 main types of felting: wet felting and needle felting.

Wet Felting

is a simple and safe way to explore wool without many additional supplies. Just soap water and wool into a ziplock bag and use your hands and fingertips to agitate and roll then plastic bag until your wool is felted into a 2 D felted masterpiece. Wet felting is great for younger children or students with disabilities who may find it difficult to safety use a felting needle. At the introductory level, most students will use wet felting to create 2D landscapes, images or scenes, but it's also quite easy to wet felt acorn and ball shapes.

Once you get more advanced in your wet felting, you can start using foam or wooden forms to create hats, slippers or other clothing and jewelry. You can also sew pieces of wet felted wool(often called simply 'felt')  together to create clothing!

Needle Felting

is the art of stabbing and poking wool fibres with a barbed needle to create 3D (and sometimes 2D) creations. Needle felting requires wool roving, a special felting needle, a felting surface like our re-usable jute felting bags.

Adaptive Felting Needle Holder

If holding a felting needle is difficult, we've collaborated with Makers Making Change to create an accessible 3D printed felting needle holder which you can 3D print at your local library or school makerspace.

 

Get Started Felting In the Classroom

To get started felting, take our online felting course! Here you can learn all the basic skills. Start out felting a simple shape like a ball and, then move on to learn cylinders, and cones, and how to attach shapes to one another. Soon, you'll learn to add and mix colors, or even add armatures for stop motion animation! 

Impact of Felting on Animals and the Environment

People often ask, "Does Shearing Wool Hurt the Sheep?" The answer, is the case of Magic Trout Imaginarium's wool, is no! In fact sheep like to be sheared because it cools them down and keeps them healthy!

Here at Magic Trout Imaginarium, we get our wool from Ashland which is in New Zealand. The reason for this, is because sheep in Canada are raised primarily for meat and dairy As a result, sheep in Canada are not treated early as well as the sheep bred exclusively for their fibre.

Sheep bred for their wool are treated like gold! They are kept indoors during bad weather and are fed high quality feedstock. They are also regularly sheared very carefully meticulously. In Canada and the US, the fibre production is not as reliable because wool and yarn is often a side business.

Check out this article about the wool industry in Canada

Teachers Save Money $$

We also know teachers spend money out of their own pockets for supplies. This is why we'd love to work with you to help you save money! Fill out an application to become a part of our Wooley Wonders program.  You can trade video, lesson plans and photos for free wool! We can also supply you school PAC (Parent Advisory Council) with a presentation. In the presentation we outline why wool is so awesome. We want to help you to get additional support and funding for your classroom activities!

Request a powerpoint presentation for your PAC

Don't Know How to Felt? 

That's ok!, we're excited to teach you because its super easy and fun! We've got you covered with our Online Felting Course for Teachers and Beginners. This is a workshop we filmed live with the UBC teacher Education Program in 2021. This course is included when you purchase of a classroom felting kit.

If online learning isn't for you, email us to book a virtual workshop! We've taught tons of people to felt both in person and virtually.

How Do I Integrate Felting into my Lesson Plans?

To help you save time, we've created some fantastic resources. Now, each purchase of a classroom sized felting kit comes with free lesson plans created by teachers like you!

 

What Do Teachers Who Have Worked With Us Think?

"Great Ideas, simple and lots of room to modify and customize projects for different groups" -Melissa SD60

 

 

Check out our Classroom Sized Kits or Email us to book an in person or virtual workshop!