Sheep may not be masters of arithmetic, and goats may not be adept business strategists. But students at South Whidbey Academy are learning lessons in these and a variety of other subjects through study of these animals, and their fibers.

The Sheep to Shawl and Fiber Arts programs at South Whidbey Academy are led by volunteer Christi Rosenberger, who visits the school twice weekly to instruct two groups of students in these respective disciplines.

The South Whidbey Schools Foundation donated $1,500 to this year’s program. This year, the program is incorporating goat fibers as well as those from sheep.

Kindergarteners, first graders and second graders take part in Fiber Arts, where they improve fine motor skills, learn basic arithmetic and other lessons while learning to tie knots, play string games like cat’s cradle and knit with their fingers.

Third, fourth and fifth-grade classes take the Sheep to Shawl class, which is somewhat more advanced. Students take on tasks like dying and researching the origin of their fibers as well as planting dye plants, harvesting and spinning.

“The arts are an awesome intersection of lots of different content or academic learnings, and kids get to do this, something that is hands-on and of high interest to them,” said David Pfeiffer, South Whidbey Academy principal. “It’s a great way to engage the kids.”

The kindergarten through second graders, who have thus far learned the process of knots, string games and finger knitting, fashioned ribbon bookmarks to give to loved ones for the holidays.

During a recent Monday afternoon class, Cedar Dennis proudly demonstrated how to make the shape of “grandpa’s pants” with the yarn while Kiah Adams-Giffin demonstrated the technique of making a teacup shape.

They’ve also learned to make “fish knots” and slip-knots using spools of yarn and ribbons.

As class progressed, the students learned lessons in addition and multiplication and appeared to be having fun doing so.

“There is a lot of math and a lot of science in fiber arts,” said Rosenberger. “This program is trying to tie all of that together.”

Students in the older Sheep to Shawl class are involved in nearly every aspect of the process, except for the shearing. Rosenberger explained that her friend, a professional shearer and rugby player, travels to South Whidbey from Wales each year to shear a number of South Whidbey’s resident animals, including those whose fiber will be used by the students.

She explained that the professional shearer is employed because of her desire to ensure the animals are not harmed or cut, and that the students maintain a positive experience without being frightened.

All of the fiber is harvested from animals on Whidbey Island, including some of the commercially spun yarn.

Research is a large part of the program for the elder students, who look into where the animals live presently and where in the world their respective breeds originated.

In addition, students record the name of the animal whose fibers they are using and keep photos of the animal in their dye books.

Cary Peterson, garden coordinator at South Whidbey’s school farm and garden, helped students to plant dye plants in the class to use.

The plants, including Dyer’s chamomile, French marigold and Dyer’s coreopsis, produced variations of yellow, orange and reddish orange, respectively.

Students kept samples of pressed flowers in their dye journals along with samples of the pre-dyed wool as a reminder of their products’ origin.

Rosenberger explained that some of the plants were used fresh while others were dried. Students were tasked with finding how to best extract the chemical dye compounds from the plants so that it would properly bond with the fiber.

“What I’m doing is not so much teaching them the rules of chemistry or the rules of science, but getting them excited about figuring stuff out and thinking about how it is happening,” said Rosenberger. “Then our very gifted science teachers can teach them a little more in depth about the academic side of it.”

The students also practiced a number of resist techniques — methods of manipulating the cloth so that dye only reaches specific parts — in the dying process in order to obtain different effects and patterns.

After the older students completed their dye projects, they had the opportunity to sell their work at the Whidbey Weaver’s Guild Sale, where they sold about a third of their inventory and earned about $100.

Rosenberger explained that mathematics are also added to the equation as students measure the volumes of dye and fibers and try to determine a suitable price for their goods at the sale as a part of the process.

“Since these are mixed-age classes, we try to make sure we’re not overwhelming the younger kids or underwhelming the older kids,” said Rosenberger. She explained that the texts the fifth graders are using were originally penned for adults, meaning their research requires attentiveness and reading comprehension.

Molly Petersons, a South Whidbey fiber artist, is helping Rosenberger instruct students on how to spin the fibers. Petersons is also growing Japanese indigo — a dye plant which creates rich blue hues — and will be giving the students a chance to use these dye plants next year.

Two spinning wheels were donated, which will allow Petersons and Rosenberger to teach interested older students to use these as opposed to the drop spindles, which will be used by younger students. The youngest weavers will use hand-fashioned looms, which they will create themselves, and will be working with commercially spun yarn.

Some of the dyed yarn is also commercially spun, Rosenberger said, because it would be unrealistic to expect students to be able to produce large volumes of spun yarn on their own with limited experience.

“One of the things I think is wonderful about Sheep to Shawl and fiber arts in general is that everything is in cycles,” said Rosenberger. “You get to own the entire process of taking a raw material into a finished product.”

This year’s class will be taking a trip to South Whidbey’s new fiber mill, Abundant Earth Fiber Mill in Clinton, where they will learn about washing, drying and prepping the wool. Last year, students took on this task in the classroom, which was quite a bit of work, according to Rosenberger. This year, Lydia Christiansen, owner of the mill, will be completing these tasks after educating the students about the process.

“The idea is to make something cool and enjoy the process,” said Rosenberger.