Learning about Silk and the Silk road

We are continuing our studies on the Silk Road.  This has turned into a much more thorough study than I thought as we learned how Buddhism traveled from India to China, learned about the Mongols and the great Genghis Khan and we are now venturing into the travels of Marco Polo.  We have watched several videos on the silk road.

We are currently reading these two books and learning about the Silk Road.    The kids were fascinated at the thought of how anyone would have thought to make silk out of moth cocoons.

The story of how silk was first discovered as told in a Chinese legend that a young Chinese princess was sitting underneath a mulberry tree having a hot cup of tea.  When a cocoon fell into her cup.  As she was scooping out the cocoon she noticed the strands of thread.  Somehow from this experience someone decided to make silk thread:)

Parents  of a friend went to China and brought back some silk cocoons sacs and they let the kids examine them more closely

One sac was opened and we saw the worm inside.  We have read that the deaths of these worms are not wasted as they are eaten.

We were able to find some remaining silk threads on the cocoon

The children were then able to examine different kinds of silks 

The kids noticed that some silk is still quite rough

while others were smoother and softer to touch

And some were quite decorative

We watched several videos on you tube on the videos on the making of silk.