Week 4: We learned about Charlemagne and made stained glass windows.
To learn about Charlemagne, we watched the two following short videos from the Khan Academy.
Charlemagne was a bit of a Renaissance man way before the time of the Renaissance. He united the Frankish tribes of France, Germany and northern Italy, promoted literacy, worked to build a system of government and was crowned emperor by the Pope. He was deeply religious and insisted on religious conversion. He built his capitol city at Aachen, Germany which is located just north of Luxembourg near the boarder of Belgium and the Netherlands. Although his palace no longer exists, the remains of his chapel have been incorporated into the Palatine Chapel.
In conjunction with our Charlemagne study, we made stained glass windows. The idea for the project came from the book Medieval Projects You Can Do! (Medieval World) which contains approximately 10 simple activities for kids.
Materials:
Black Construction Paper
Glue
Scissors
Wax Paper
Iron
Crayon Shavings
The first step was to cut an open rectangle from the construction paper to serve as the boarder.
The kids drew designs with large shapes on plain paper and then created strips of black from the construction paper matching each line in their drawings.
The designs needed to be attached to the frame, so if their designs
didn't touch the edge, additional bars were created to make the
connection.
Using ground up pieces of crayon of solid colors, the glass was created by ironing pieces between to sheets of wax paper.
Each sheet melted differently and it was interesting watching the colors run.
Next, small pieces of waxed paper were cut to be placed over each opening.
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Those projects turned out really well...they do look like stained glass! I had to do something similar when I was in sixth grade myself. We had to cut out a picture from cardboard with an exacto knife and then we painted the cardboard black and glued pieces of tissue paper to the back for the stained glass. I still remember doing that project after all these years.
I've done a similar project, but used colored cellophane instead of waxed paper. It was shorter by one step, but I like the matte look of your version.
which contains approximately 10 simple activities for kids.
Those projects turned out really well...they do look like stained glass! I had to do something similar when I was in sixth grade myself. We had to cut out a picture from cardboard with an exacto knife and then we painted the cardboard black and glued pieces of tissue paper to the back for the stained glass. I still remember doing that project after all these years.
ReplyDeleteThe artwork is gorgeous. I never would have thought to iron crayons to make stained glass! Very cool.
ReplyDeleteI've done a similar project, but used colored cellophane instead of waxed paper. It was shorter by one step, but I like the matte look of your version.
ReplyDeleteThese are gorgeous! I love the level of detail!
ReplyDelete