Weaving and Feather Crafts

This entry will contain templates to one weaving and two feather crafts. These are Native American inspired and were used in our Covid-19 summer to-go craft kits in lieu of our in-house programming.

The story that went along with these was "When Turtle Grew Feathers" by Tim Tingle. This is a Choctaw version of Aesop's "The Tortoise and The Hare".

Crafts were prepped and packaged in brown paper sacks. They were set out on tables for families to come in and pick up. During this time, we also began curbside service so families could call in to ask for a kit and have it delivered to them outside of the building.

Crafts aimed at tween aged children and would be good for a school-aged book club.

 Paper Weaving

The Choctaw Indians used river cane to weave baskets for everyday use such as storing food, carrying items and trapping animals during hunts. Many women used natural dyes to add color and patterns to their baskets.

This craft lets kids practice their own weaving skills.

Print out the template on paper - I used cardstock for the base and construction paper for the strips.

There are 2 sheets on the PDF. The first sheet with the turtles is the base and the second sheet is for the strips of paper.

Instructions: Print out pages. Cut along the thin black lines on the page with turtles. Do NOT cut the thicker lines at the top. Weave the paper through so that the turtle images are covered. This is the basic foundation of weaving.

Instructions aren't on the PDF, just the printable pattern. This can also be done with regular copy paper.

Click here for the Paper Weaving PDF


Feather Quill 
Original idea comes from Krokotak.com and was actually used last year during our Harry Potter Finale last year. In fact, we were able to use our leftover supplies from that.

All that's needed is pens and/or pencils. Print the template onto construction paper, color it, cut it out and attach it to your writing utensil.Tape or glue works fine.

Easy peasy.

This was the template used (...I like to squeeze as many things onto a page as I can) but visit the link above for the original template!

Feather Bookmark

This was partially swiped from my coworker who has been focusing on crafts for 2nd grade and
under. She had found this adorable feather template for her kiddies to color and I loved it.

Supplies for this craft were colored cardstock, these feathers printed onto copy paper, clear contact paper, and ribbon (optional). Then of course scissors and coloring utensils were used by the kids to complete.

The contact paper should be more than double the width of the bookmark.

Each kid received 1 feather, 1 bookmark sized piece of colored cardstock ( sized to be larger than the feather) precut ribbon and pre-cut contact paper.

Step 5

Instructions: 
1. Color feather before cutting out. 
2. Attach feather to one side of the cardstock using tape or glue. 
3. Flip bookmark over and attach ribbon to top of cardstock.
4. Using clear contact paper, fold sticky side around the front and back of your bookmark. Make sure you do not trap your ribbon inside the contact paper! You want it to dangle out of the top so that it will stick out of your marked book.
5. Cut excess contact paper from sides