Master basketweaver Alice Ogden has been teaching students in Hooksett all about weaving.

As the artist-in-residence at Memorial School, Ogden has been visiting art classes and helping each student create a woven “tree star” out of all-natural materials from black ash splints and tree bark.

“It opens the kids up to a whole new field of crafts,” said Ogden, who hails from West Franklin and travels around the state as an artist-in-residence through the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts. She introduced basketmaking to Hooksett students during a schoolwide assembly.

Ogden has been making baskets for 25 years and uses all-natural materials.

Her husband, Brad Weyant, is a professional logger who supplies her with black ash logs, which she then strips of their bark. She pounds the logs to loosen the wood and then strips off each individual layer to use for baskets.

She makes everything by hand, using materials from the woods and swamps of New Hampshire.

“I think it’s wicked fun. I want to bring it home to do, too,” said fifth-grader Brooklyn Presuto, as she worked on her tree star.

The Hooksett PTA underwrote the artist-in-residence program this year.

Students made their stars using 10 thin strips of wood – five facing horizontally, five vertically.

They wove the horizontal and vertical pieces together, then secured it by weaving a single piece around, and then through the center woven square.

Students decorated their projects using cattails for the hanger and streamers, as well as stars made out of birch bark and sapling beads.

“This is awesome,” said Hannah Withee. “It’s fun and it’s going to look really pretty when it’s done.”

The stars will be displayed in the school’s common area on Expo Night, April 9 and 10.