End of the year: 5th grade

And now, some of my 5th graders work from the end of the school year. These are simple 9x12 weavings embellished with hand-drawn hieroglyphics. The highlight are the Egyptian drawings - inspired by several color copy handouts I gave the kids to observe from. They really enjoyed the challenge of this figure drawing assignment as you can see in the examples. Pencil first, sharpie to make it all pop and then colored pencil. 

And to end out the year, we made some jewelry using the Kumihimo weaving technique. Kumihimo was invented by Japanese fishermen to braid rope. It means "gathered threads." The kids went cuckoo for this - I even did!! It's so fun and EASY! I have to say it was pretty magical. I taught myself how to do it from the Dabbles and Babbles blog before showing the kids. To make the loom, the kids cut out a circle from mat board, which can be a little heavy for them, so I was on guard to help. We traced around yogurt lids. After they drew and cut the dashed lines around the perimeter for the slits, I used a box cutter to draw an X in the center, then poked a very thick pencil through to form the hole. Sometimes the looms just get "tired" after making a bracelet or necklace (even when made from something thicker like the mat board), so have some extra board on hand because your kids will want to make more than one!