Chinchero Textiles
Unit Overview:
Students will clean and prepare fleece, spin yarn, dye the yarn, prepare a loom and weave a textile.
Students will be asked to consider how textiles are created and treated in different parts of the world. Students will learn about the weaving traditions of the Centro de Textiles Traditionales del Cusco, a weaving community in the Sacred Valley region of Peru. Students will learn the process of making textiles used in Chinchero, Peru, as well as about the community and the role textiles play in their economy and social structure. Students will understand and replicate the craft procedures as closely as possible, from sheering an animal to having a final piece of cloth.
Original class population: 4th grade, 15-25 students
Key skills:
Enduring Understandings:
Essential Questions:
Daily overview
Day 1 - Students will visit a museum to view pre-Columbian textiles.
Day 2 - Students will learn about the process of shearing alpacas and washing raw wool. They will work on washing local raw wool in teams, using large vats of water and detergent.
Day 3 - Students will spin clean roving into yarn using a drop spindle.
Day 4 - Students will work in groups to create dyes out of natural materials (such as tumeric or charcoal to create carbon black). Students will add yarn to the vats of dye they have created and make sure the dye is evenly distributed and leave them to soak. The teacher will remove them and dry them after an appropriate amount of dying time.
Day 5 - Students will re-spin yarn that became frayed in the dying process.
Day 6-8 - Using loom structures provided to them, students will thread traditional back-strap looms and begin to weave small textiles.
Students will clean and prepare fleece, spin yarn, dye the yarn, prepare a loom and weave a textile.
Students will be asked to consider how textiles are created and treated in different parts of the world. Students will learn about the weaving traditions of the Centro de Textiles Traditionales del Cusco, a weaving community in the Sacred Valley region of Peru. Students will learn the process of making textiles used in Chinchero, Peru, as well as about the community and the role textiles play in their economy and social structure. Students will understand and replicate the craft procedures as closely as possible, from sheering an animal to having a final piece of cloth.
Original class population: 4th grade, 15-25 students
Key skills:
- Cleaning wool
- Spinning yarn
- Dying yarn
- Threading a loom
- Weaving fabric
Enduring Understandings:
- Students will understand that textiles are a traditional craft and will know the steps in the process of creating them.
- Students will understand that the industrialized textile production they are familiar with in the US is not the same everywhere.
- Students will consider the structure of society; who is in power and why?
- Students will understand that the history of the Americans didn't start with Europeans “discovering” it and that the traditions of pre-columbian cultures are still very much alive.
Essential Questions:
- How are wool textiles made?
- How is textile production different for the people of Chinchero than it in the US?
- What is a matriarchal society? What roles do the women in Chinchero have? How are they different than the roles of women here?
- Who lived in the Americas before Columbus arrived in 1492? Where are indigenous groups now?
Daily overview
Day 1 - Students will visit a museum to view pre-Columbian textiles.
Day 2 - Students will learn about the process of shearing alpacas and washing raw wool. They will work on washing local raw wool in teams, using large vats of water and detergent.
Day 3 - Students will spin clean roving into yarn using a drop spindle.
Day 4 - Students will work in groups to create dyes out of natural materials (such as tumeric or charcoal to create carbon black). Students will add yarn to the vats of dye they have created and make sure the dye is evenly distributed and leave them to soak. The teacher will remove them and dry them after an appropriate amount of dying time.
Day 5 - Students will re-spin yarn that became frayed in the dying process.
Day 6-8 - Using loom structures provided to them, students will thread traditional back-strap looms and begin to weave small textiles.