Talking Textiles - The Complete Series (6 lessons)

With lesson plans, slides, activity ideas, differentiated worksheets, picture cards, challenge cards and more, these 'Talking Textiles' lessons for Year 5 and 6 provide everything you need (apart from the needles and thread!) to teach this creative module.

The first lesson in this series studies the Bayeux Tapestry and explores other ways in which artists across the ages have told stories visually, from the ancient Egyptians to Alice in Wonderland! Children will consider what can be learnt about a story from a single image and use pictures themselves to tell more of the story shown in the image.

Time to warm up their imaginations in this lesson as they listen to a story and think about the images that spring to mind. With a choice of four familiar stories to read on the slides or the option to read the story of your choice, your class will have plenty to choose from as they consider how to transfer words to images to convey the same meanings.

This lesson gives your class the chance to experiment with a variety of techniques, such as stitching, layering, painting and quilting, as they gather ideas for use in their own textile story. Children will practise a variety of these techniques, considering how they could be used to portray particular scenes.

Starting by thinking about what they have learnt so far that will help them, your class will then design their own textile stories using the ideas they have gathered. The slides go through some helpful questions that will get them thinking about how they will organise their textile story and how they can design scenes that are simple enough to translate to fabric yet clear enough to tell a story.

The eagerly awaited lesson in which your class finally get to put their creative ideas into action as they use a variety of different textile techniques to create their own talking textile story. The slides go through some helpful questions to get them thinking about what they will do if they come across any problems and to consider how they can make their work of a high quality.

Please note that, due to the practical nature of this lesson, worksheets are not necessary and, therefore are not included.

The final lesson in this series gives your class the chance to evaluate their finished textile stories and compare their work to the work of others. They will consider what has gone well, what they could improve if they were to make their textile stories again and what they think and feel about their finished artwork.