Make A Ming-Inspired Bowl!

These sweet bowls would make lovely Christmas gifts for family & friends!

We’ve been studying the beginnings of Ancient China and highly recommend this straight-up fun project for all ages. If needed, parents can help younger kids in between making a Ming bowl for themselves!

You’ll Need: A large ball of air-dry clay (I have some of the Crayola brand, and it works great, and is affordable at about $5 for a tub), plastic wrap, a small round bowl, a rolling pin, a sculpting tool or blunt knife, acrylic paints, a clear acrylic sealing spray, or a mixture of glue and water, to glaze the finished piece.

1. Wrap the outside of your bowl in plastic wrap.  I recommend using a smaller “condiment” sized bowl for the first one.

2. Roll out your ball of clay to no less than 1/4″ thickness, making sure it is big enough to cover the outside of the bowl. Press it tightly around the bowl, then use your tools to trim away any excess. Be sure not to make the air-dry clay too thin or the bowl will crack when it dries (we did this and then used the pieces as “archaeology pottery” 🙂 )

3. Place the bowl on a piece of newspaper and allow to dry in an airy place. Don’t put it in the direct sun or it can dry out too fast and crack. It should be dry by the next morning.

4. Remove the dried bowl from the form and paint! Ancient Chinese pottery was usually decorated with pictures of birds, flowers, and outdoor scenes, painted in whites and blues. Captain painted hers with cobalt blue, let it dry, then painted flowers and bird shapes in moon yellow. She was a little bummed that her birds didn’t come out the way she wanted, but they are fabulous! She even added a little tiny “M” for “mom” in the center of one of her flowers… ahhh!

5. After the piece is completely dry, a fine sharpie can be used to write a name, or initials, and date on the bottom. What a sweet keepsake!

6. Spray with clear acrylic sealer (adults only), or you can glaze it with a mixture of 2 parts white glue to 1 part water. These both will give it a shiny glaze coating, which we love. Or, you can leave it as is.

Before and after I sprayed the acrylic seal on

Fun, simple and a little “M” to boot. I love it!  I hope you and/or your kids will give this a try. Check out Google images to share some traditional Ming bowls and pottery with your kids. Captain has been inspired to try making another one that looks like this:

A gorgeous flower bowl from the 1300’s

We got the idea for this project out of The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child, Ancient Times. We thank you kindly!

Cheers, Karen

Budding Egyptologists: Make Your Own Canopic Jar!

Greetings! This is a straight-up wonderful project for kids and adults alike. Captain made her very own canopic jar as part of an extensive study of ancient Egypt, and it has turned out to be a wonderful art piece, not to mention a terrific keepsake of this lovely period in her life.  I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS ONE! These jars are made from a condiment squeeze bottle (like ketchup!), wadded-up paper towels, masking tape, pre-plastered gauze rolls (I used the leftovers from a belly-cast I did while I was pregnant), Crayola air-dry clay, and paint.  Kids could also create an entirely different style of jar using this method, without an Egyptian theme, if desired, and the possibilities are creatively endless!

In the time of Ancient Egypt, canopic jars were used to store particular organs of the body during the mummification process, and were placed in the tomb along with the sarcophagus containing the prepared body. The jars had lids, or stoppers, that were shaped as the heads of the minor funerary deities known as the Four Sons of Horus. It was the job of these deities to protect the internal organs of the dead. Ancient Egyptians firmly believed that the deceased required his or her organs to be reborn in the Afterlife. The organs needed to be removed from the body so that it would not decay, but needed to be present with the body, so the jars were used for their storage. They were made of natural materials such as limestone, wood, pottery, alabaster or calcite. There were 4 jars used. The deity Hapy, the baboon, was for the lungs, the human-headed Imsety guarded the liver, Jackal-headed Duamutef held the stomach and the falcon-headed Qubehseneuf took care of the intestines. Fascinating! Captain chose Duamutef for her jar and created a wonderful jackal-head out of simple air-dry clay right onto the squeeze bottle top!

When Captain decided she wanted make her own jar, I found the instructions for this project at Detroit Institute of Arts Lesson Plans for Teachers. Here are the supplies you will need:

One plastic squeeze jar or bottle with a top (preferably a pointed top as shown above, because it provides an armature for holding the clay head tightly in place and makes it much sturdier), pre-plastered gauze rolls, self-hardening modeling material, like Crayola’s brand, masking tape, paper towels or newspaper, acrylic or tempera paint, paint brushes.

Step One is simple and fun. Use wadded up paper towels and masking tape to create a canopic jar “shape”.  I pulled a bunch of strips of tape off and had them ready for her and helped her to hold the paper towel wads onto the jar as she taped.  She stopped when she got to the shape she desired. Leave the top of the squeeze bottle in place while creating the body of the jar, including applying the plaster strips.

Step Two: I pre-cut the plaster gauze rolls into strips and had a bowl of water on hand. Dip each strip quickly into the water and apply to the jar to cover completely in overlapping layers. Cover the bottom first and work up from there, covering the entire jar and smoothing it all down as you go. Do NOT cover the jar tops, as the heads will be formed later with clay, after the body of the jar has dried.

While the jar then dries for a day or so before painting, the top can be removed to start working on creating the head!

Step Three: If it has not already been decided, the child should choose which of the 4 deities they would like to make. Captain chose Duamutef, the jackal-headed god, and there were lots of gooey comments about the stomach that would have gone into this one 🙂 I basically gave her a smooth ball of air-dry clay, she flattened the bottom, and I helped her press the lid into it. Again, the pointed tip provides an excellent armature for making a solid head.

Using clay tools, or anything you have on hand like toothpicks, knives etc., help guide your child in carving out the basic shape of the desired head. I explained that she would need to remove clay from under the “chin” and extend the nose to get the jackal face that she wanted, and she did an awesome job shaping the clay. I helped a little bit here and there. I showed her how to add the ears before adding the final details to the face. I got out some toothpicks and after she shaped the ears, I showed her how to use a toothpick to secure the ears to the head and then use her fingers to carefully sooth the clay down to help secure the ears in place. The jackal is the only one that has ear “extensions” like this, and we really wanted to make them sturdy! The air-dry clay was very thick and took a few days to dry outside.

Meanwhile, the body of the jar had dried and was ready to paint! If the jar and lid are both going to be one solid color, you can wait to paint them both at the same time, but there are endless ways to paint and decorate the jar. Captain went for a solid-color “stone” look after painting the bottom of the jar a dark color and then changing her mind.

Using acrylic paint, she mixed the desired colors…

Painting the jackal head…. It looks so cool!!

Painting the jar was fun. When she got bored with painting it the second time, Dad jumped in and helped too!

After the jar is completely dry, screw the head right on! Fantastic! This is a terrific project and I want to thank the folks at DIA for sharing this wonderful method. Captain’s jackal-headed canopic jar has become a conversation piece at our home, and we all LOVE how it turned out and are very proud of her. This project stimulates so many things like creativity, history, culture, patience, imagination! We talked about Ancient Egypt a lot while working on this and throughout our other Egyptian projects, which will be coming up here on Kartwheels. I would like to add that any project that allows for mistakes to be made with solutions to be figured out is terrific for kids. When the jackal head and jar were outside drying, Captain tried to play with the head and snapped one of the almost-dry ears off of her jackal. She was devastated and cried that it was ruined and was ashamed of herself for trying to mess with it after we had advised that it not be touched until dry. It was a wonderful moment when I came out of the house with some Gorilla Glue and together we reattached it and also filled in a couple of small cracks.  Voila! It was a gentle reminder that most things can be fixed, and I got a giant hug too 🙂

Read more about Canopic jars of Ancient Egypt here and definitely google “canopic jar images” to see some fantastic examples of both ancient canopic jars, and handsome ones made by students and Egyptologists alike!

Visit Discovery Kids to try your hand at preparing a body for mummification online, courtesy of BBC.

Thanks so much for reading, and if you try this project with your kids, we would love to hear about it!

An ancient tomb of echoing cheers to all,

Karen

DIY: Mom & Me Journal!

In the photo, Captain and I are BOTH inside my shirt..

Here is our version of the “Mom & Me” journal!  Basically, it is a composition notebook with a label on the front for you and your child to write notes, letters, share pictures, etc. I made this one morning, wrote a note inside inviting Captain to share notes with me, anytime we feel like it, and left it on her bed. She was thrilled and sat in bed for a long time with a pencil, drawing pictures and writing notes. We have had it for about 6 months already and both love it. Sometimes we forget about it and a lot of time passes before one of us adds something to it, and that is just perfect. There is no pressure to do anything but tell each other little things…  She has written notes to ask me to make her favorite dinner, which I love! There are so many “I love you’s” and pictures of our dogs. It is also surprising how some honest, hard to talk about, things can come up. There is something safe for kids to be able to write down some feelings and ideas that they have a hard time saying in person. They KNOW their mom (or Dad) will see it, but don’t have to talk about it, just yet.

I think this notebook idea could be adapted to boys simply by changing the colors and making it suit their personality more. It would be really easy to make a “Dad & Me” notebook as well! Because it is a solid book, clearly marked, it doesn’t get lost in all of the other paper and notes that seem to fly around our cabin!  I am especially looking forward to reading it again one day when Captain is all grown up. What a wonderful keepsake! I got the idea from Mama Jenn on her blog, and she got the idea from another, who got the idea from another…

I do hope you try this.  It is fun and pretty special.

Here’s to good memories (and notes that state that a certain someone would rather NOT clean up her room, complete with little, drawn, grumpy faces… love it!)

Cheers, Karen

Take a Photography Paint-Sample Walk With Kids, and Make a Cool Scrapbook too!

Have you ever wished you could find a use for those colorful sample cards found in the household paint aisle?  Well, they’re not just for choosing colors for your walls anymore!

Greetings nature, colors, photography and scrap-booking! This is a neat project that is perfect for the kiddos who love to be outdoors in nature, with a camera.

You’ll need:  paint sample cards from your local hardware store, or paint store, a camera, pages for a scrapbook, and glue.  *The photographs will need to be printed in order to make a little scrapbook.

What to Do:  Invite your child to join you on a “paint-card picture walk”. Go to the hardware/paint store and pick out paint sample cards that are in colors that might match your surroundings, or your local park.  Greens, yellows, browns, reds?  The colors of rocks, of wildflowers? What do you have living outside around you? Collect some of the cards to bring home.

Grab the cards, and a camera, and take a great big nature walk (a lovely time to bring a picnic lunch along!). The object is to find things in nature that match the colors of the cards.  Not exactly matching, of course, but of a similar color family. The child will take photos of the plants, rocks, trees, etc. This is great fun!!!  *I took a moment to remind Captain know that we were not going to print ALL of the seemingly hundreds of photos she took, but that she could choose 20 of her favorites to create a little scrapbook. Kids take their photographs seriously, and I think it is best to let them know, ahead of time, that there are limits.

After the walk, review the photos with your child.  Captain was excited at the dinner-table that night to share her experience with her dad. After the selected photos are printed, a scrapbook can be made with the paint cards displayed on a page with the photos, perhaps a little writing about what is in the photos, and Captain even suggested that we find some of the featured plants and flowers to press between waxed paper (under heavy books) to add later!

“These colors don’t match, but don’t they look nice together?”

  

Captain’s colorful photos of a dog bone on granite and wildflowers

The creative skies are the limit when arranging pages for the scrapbook. The colored cards can be pasted side by side, or in a fan-pattern, with the photos over the top etc.  Each project is unique to the child who creates it. Oh yes! You can take these picture-walks more than once and keep adding to the scrapbook. What a sweet way to let loose the creativity, spend time observing nature, and have a neat memorable keepsake!

I got the idea for this project on Education.com. They offer tons of great project ideas, sheets and activities for kids of all ages.

If you go on a picture walk with your kids, we would love to hear about it here on Kartwheels!

Thanks for reading.

Cheers, Karen

Kids Road Trip Keepsake: Postcard Photo Book!

A 99¢ photo book and post cards is all kids need to create their own keepsake book

On our last big road trip, Captain enjoyed collecting keychains as we drove cross country.  Mom and Dad also get her one when we go somewhere, and it’s fun because we always end up talking about the places we have been because of the souvenirs we have collected.  One time, Captain’s dad went to Amsterdam and because of the keychain he brought back, we ended up doing a little homeschool unit on Holland and learned a bunch of cool stuff!

On this trip, we knew we wouldn’t be stopping a lot to do adventurous things, as we are trying to get cross country quickly, so we decided to try something new.  I purchased a little 4 x 6 album for less than a dollar and we have found that the small postcards (barely) fit in it and have been collecting them along the way.  The book is full of fun postcards from California all the way to New York.  We missed a couple as not as many places sell postcards as they used to, but it has been an inexpensive, delightful way to make a little keepsake book of our trip.

I would LOVE to hear of more ideas for fun activities on the road!  A couple of my plans were failures, like bringing a small roll of aluminum foil to color on and make little animals out of.  Captain was very clear that this was NOT a good idea…  But, she did remind me to take the big ball of foil out of the trash bag and put it into the recycle bin and that was success all on its own!

Good Thoughts! Karen