Cunning Creations - Part 1

I promised in my last post that I would tell you about my afternoon Summer Enrichment class last week which was Cunning Creations.  Last year I taught interested learners about how to make paper which was a great way to recycle.  This year I thought I would try doing something different every day.  I was always spending my summers as a kid making something out of basically nothing, so I pulled out some of the crazy things I used to do.  I had 30 kids sign-up, so I divided the class into two sessions.

Monday we made ink.  I brought in some quills (duck feathers) so we could make our own quill pens for writing.  I had some examples of ink I had made out of charcoal and some made out of dark berries.  We had fun searching the playground looking for "materials" like berries, flowers, and other natural objects.  It is rather fun to play on the playground in the middle of summer.  I don't know how successful it was, but I hope everyone had some fun making the ink.

Here are some of the recipes I used for making the ink.

MONDAY: Making Ink
Show students examples of ink already made.
Field Trip to playground to find possible items to make ink - Then crush items, mix stuff, and make what I can from what is available.
Brown Ink:
*1/2 cup boiling water     *4-5 teabags (or 4 tsp of loose tea)      *1 tsp gum Arabic

Pour boiling water over the tea bags in a large bowl, add gum Arabic. Steep for 15 minutes. Squeeze teabags to extract as much tannic acid as possible. Strain and allow to cool before bottling. Use handmade quill pen.                                                                                                                                        

Dark Berry Ink:                                                                                                                                                       To prepare ink from any dark berries, crush them and strain to extract the juice. Add some vinegar and salt mix well and store.

Here are some ideas for colors you could achieve from natural objects:

- cranberries, beets or red onion skins (RED)
- dandelion petals (YELLOW)
- yellow onion skins (GOLD)
- tea leaves (use only four opened tea bags to one cup water) (BROWN)
- parsley, carrot tops or spinach (GREEN)
- blueberries (BLUE)
- tomato skins (ROSE)

You can use lemon juice for invisible ink.  Write the secret message with the lemon juice.  When you want to see it, hold it over an open flame to heat it and your writing with invisible ink will appear.  You must be very careful not to catch the paper on fire - you may want to try a blow dryer.

Next time, I'll give you my recipes for dough and clay.

I hope you're taking time to do something entertaining today!

Mrs. Watson

You KNOW it is summer when no one wears shoes.....

Why not try writing a Haiku about that?

Green grass and flowers

I can feel between my toes

Summer - free of shoes