There was a visitor in Mrs. Chodoff’s art class this week. Lisa Cope Cohn, fiber artist and former Wooster parent, shared spinning techniques with the fourth and first graders. Fourth graders buddied up with first graders to make their own yarn.

As part of her demonstration, Mrs. Cohn also showed wool in all of the stages. She used the spinning wheel, the drop spindle, and carding implements, so that students could see how wool is shorn, washed, carded, and spun. Students used a stick and a rock to twist and spin the fiber.

Learning to spin yarn reinforced the material that both grades are working on in class. The first grade is doing a unit on clothing as part of their study of basic human needs, so they recognized that the making of yarn is one step in the making of some articles of clothing. The fourth grade is learning about the Westward Expansion and learned that yarn making was a very important skill for pioneers.