Inspired by the Explorer class’s current book club book, “Island of the Blue Dolphins”, where the main character makes everything she needs to survive out of found materials that live or grow on her Island. Along with the generosity of a past Five Acre family, Glen and Lusana Shultz (Wolf and Yuli’s parents), Teacher Sarah and I were able to harvest enough cattail leaves from their pond in order for each student to have the opportunity to weave their own small mat.

This project offered students a greater opportunity to understand just how labor intensive each step of working with natural materials can be.

In an era when one can order almost anything they want off of Amazon to be delivered the very next day- it can be difficult to imagine how many steps requiring patience, determination, and care go into producing even the simplest of objects.

These very small mats required hours of prep and processing just for the leaves to be pliable and ready to weave with. Keep reading to learn more about these steps!

Step 1: Find enough cattail leaves to harvest for 15 students to be able to create a functional item with.
(We really wanted students to be able to harvest the cattails out of the wetland on our school campus in order to use; however, there was only enough usable material for a couple of students.)

Step 2: Transport leaves to a dry place (Sarah's living room floor) where they could be spread out flat in order to fully dry out- which was a several day process.
In order to prevent project shrinkage.

Step 3: Trim leaves to fit in a soaking tub (Emily's bath tub), submerge in water for about 30 minutes in order for the leaves to be rehydrated and workable.

Step 4: Wrap leaves in damp towels to mellow for 12-24 hrs prior to weaving to allow water to penetrate into the center of the leaves making them malleable enough to weave with.

Step 5: Distribute leaves evenly among students and weave together! :)

It was fun to watch our seasoned weavers support newer students in the process of their woven creations!
The mats turned out beautifully! Students are proud of the finished product and seemed to enjoy the process. However, most of them would have liked it if we had enough supplies for all of them to weave a basket or hat.

-Emily