Cotton bolls with husks and seeds in tack offer students an excellent hands on activity.
African children build their own looms.
Make a triangular African children's loom by using the three dowels. Attach a thinner cross-stick, or metal rod, horizontally close to the tops of the first two vertical dowels. You can do this with string or by making two holes through the dowels. Wrap thread around the front dowel and bring it up and over the cross stick and back around the front dowel until 15 to 20 threads are laid out at even distances from one another forming a warp. Make a shuttle using a flat stick or a tongue depressor to hold the cross thread, the weft, which will go over and under the individual warp threads at right angles.