Talk About It: What Do Webs Have to Do With Weaving?
Updated: Oct 12
The big idea: Spiders weave webs, and people weave cloth, both by crossing lines.
Spiders make webs by crossing lines of silk. People weave cloth the same way: one line goes over, the next goes under. In Ghana, in West Africa, there's a famous story that weavers learned to make beautiful kente cloth by watching a spider spin its web. Ghana is also where many stories of Anansi, a clever spider, come from. That's this week's Grow with Sprout question!
Questions to ask
"What does a spider make with its silk?"
"Can you find something in our house that's woven, like a basket, a blanket or your shirt?"
"Look closely at the cloth. Can you see lines going over and under?"
"What colors would you put in your own cloth?"
Show it in one minute
Cut a few slits in a paper plate or a piece of paper, then weave a strip of paper over, under, over, under. Say it out loud together as you go. Look at the pattern you made!
Keep it going
Find Ghana on a map or globe together. Then look for patterns all day: stripes on a shirt, squares on a blanket and crossing lines on a basket.
Want to learn more?
Kente Cloth, from Khan Academy
Bonwire Kente, from the Ghana Tourism Authority
How to Teach Children About Cultural Awareness and Diversity, from PBS KIDS for Parents
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More for this week: see all our Spider activities, Letter G activities and Number 7 activities.
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