4th Grade: Japanese Woven Kimonos

This was a fun project for my students.  We spent one day learning a little history on the kimono, and I talked about how kimono designers get to choose colors and fabrics when designing these beautiful and functional works of art.  That same day, students printed designs on 2 different pieces of paper (9x12 white construction paper).  They used tempera paint and sponges to cover their chosen texture plate and then printed the plate right onto the paper.  The second day, we cut the printed papers into strips and they picked out more construction paper to weave their strips through.  The kimono is just two different woven rectangles glued together and the seam is covered with the "obi" or sash.  They embellished the sash with ribbon, and the last day they created a "hanko" or stamp with the characters of their name in Japanese kanji (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji) or katakana (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana).  All of our dual language students at my school luckily already knew how to write their names in Japanese, which made it easier- but that would be a fun lesson to teach as well!  I did all of the stamping at a printing station (using red ink and a brayer) once they carved their names into the styrofoam.