China History Co-op. Week 11 - Ming Dynasty

Week 11: We painted China vases.

The last day of our China history co-op occurred three days after my daughter's Leukemia diagnosis so I was not able to attend. My two older children were able to go and I asked my 10 year old daughter to write about the lesson. Here is what she had to say. (I did do some editing to make it easier to read.)

First we read our assignments Chinese style. Then we saw pictures of Ming dynasty vases and learned how archaeologists could tell if the vase was from the Ming or the Tang dynasty. They could tell by the presence of a chemical in the blue paint and by how many layers of paint were on the vase. The Chinese added one, two or three layers of blue paint to make it look more 3d. One vase was odd shaped and sold to America for at least 1 million dollars of taxes.

Then we painted vases with several different shades of blue paint. The paint was blue because that was all the Chinese had.

After the lesson, the wonderful ladies from the history co-op stopped by the hospital for a visit. They dropped off a vase for Jemma to paint and she asked to paint it right away.