Medieval Stained Glass Craft

We have been doing some fascinating activities for our Medieval History unit, (Viking Runes, Medieval Illuminations, and our own homemade Medieval Subtleties) but this craft or "craftivity" turned out the most beautiful of all.  We created our own stained glass windows!

This is an easy activity, especially if you purchase our premade Medieval Window packet which includes 4 possible designs for your students to choose from to make their window.

You will also need a transparency sheet (or some recycled flat plastic), a sharpie, food coloring and glue.  And some Q-tips.  Because we always fall back on Q-tips as an easy go-to paintbrush for these kinds of activities.

After drawing the designs on the transparencies with black sharpies, we cut out our window shapes.  And we began to fill in the window shapes with our glue paint.

To make it easier, we cut out our paper design and taped it, along with the transparency to the table.  It kept our image stable while the kids filled in the colors.

After the colored glue had dried, we cut out our window edging and glued it over the glass.  An optional idea is to go over the top of the sharpie with black puffy paint.  This raised black edging makes the stained glass really pop.  It feels just like the leaded glass stained windows you might see in an old church or heraldic window.

The finished product is tacked to the window so that the light can stream through, just like it streamed through Medieval stained glass windows, many years ago.

A beautiful finished product!  Check out our packet that includes everything you need to create this craft, here in our store.

Reviews

"My students were completely engaged and created a great deal of stained glass with this project. We researched how stained glass was made with Medieval techniques (the V&A Museum has a fantastic video!) and then we got to work, having unearthed a box of old transparencies, which I think really makes this project. We also were creating them for our Medieval Faire for our K-3rd graders and they found the stained glass captivating. I would have never guessed they would have looked so good! Excellent lesson!" --- Anne C.

"Loved the informational text. It was so helpful. The activity wasn't as engaging as I'd hoped, but it was still worth the purchase." --- Get Schooled

"We a learning about the role of churches during the Medieval time period so this is a great supplemental for us and a nice break from the heavy reading and material. The students enjoyed creating these." ---  Pham-tastic Teaching

 

"One of the better stained-glass projects I've seen. Worked greatly for my A&H class!" --- Eli Edwards

"We used the patterns to make our own stained glass. We used sharpies instead of glue and they came out beautifully." --- Tippecanoe

"I used this resource to supplement what we were learning in class. My students loved the activity?" --- Wendy E.

"This was a fun activity to do in my summer program during medieval week." --- Karen C.

"My students really enjoyed making them, and were so proud of the outcome.  We did what someone else suggested and just used permanent sharpies.  They look awesome!" --- Randy Bland

"My students loved this activity! We completed it in the middle of our Middle Ages reading unit. To make them even more stained glass in appearance, they lightly used a cotton ball to spread vegetable oil on the back to make them translucent." --- Dayna K.

Check out our packet that includes everything you need to create this craft, here in our store.

Creating Roman Mosaics for Art and History

We have been studying Ancient Rome for our homeschool history, and decided to experiment a little with Roman Mosaics.

Our first experiment involved pieces of construction paper that we cut into tiny squares.  We filled them in a little haphazardly onto a piece of paper I'd hastily drawn a ship on.  It was fun and gave the kids the basic understanding of what a Mosaic consisted of.

But after some thought, I decided to create a more carefully planned Mosaic project for us (and for you!) in order to practice mosaics in a more mathematical, planned way.  This packet is for sale in our store, but let me run through it here, so you get an idea of what it takes to complete. 

There are three options for kids to choose from in the packet.  My daughter chose the Roman flower.  My son chose the Roman Ship.  Each child who is planning on completing a mosaic will need two sheets:  their design page, and the sheet that contains the tiles or "tesserae" that they will need in order to fill in their design.

There was a lot of scissor cutting involved.  I helped my five year old daughter to cut out her tesserae.  I'm not sure this would be the best craft for every five year old.  My daughter leans toward the artsy side and she enjoyed this immensely, but I actually set the age rating on this packet for 5th, 6th and 7th.

My son cut out ALL of his little tiles before he began gluing.  I'm not sure this was the best way to go.  The Roman Ship Mosaic is probably the hardest of the three options and involves the most tesserae.  But, he was determined with his system and kept all tiles of a color together in small piles as he cut the rest.

The Roman Flower has three different varying shades of pink or red, and there is a legend which explains which letter on the design goes to which color.  "Wine" or "W" was for the darkest red.  "Pink" or "P" is for pink, the lightest, and "R" or "Rose" is for the medium shade of pink.  So, you can work in a bit of color vocabulary with your lesson, which might be helpful.

We used regular, generic old glue-sticks and it worked just fine.  I do recommend card-stock for your print-outs to make it a tad easier for the tesserae to be picked up and glued down.

The tiles are small, but it looks so nice as the designs start to come together!

And the finished designs are beautiful and yet help convey the time and effort that it must have taken the ancient Romans to complete their own intricate works.

Check out our latest store addition:  Roman Mosaics for Art and History!  And share with us in the comments, how you explore Ancient Rome in your supplements and activities.

The Artwork of India : Making Mandalas

There are many interpretations of Mandalas.  They have roots in both the Hindu and Buddhist religions.  But when I teach about Mandalas, I find no need to delve into those roots to enjoy the beauty of this radial art form.

I see the Mandala as an art form using patterns.  Because they utilize patterns, even small children can enjoy creating them.  Indian patterns often use nature in their artwork.  You can see the peacock feather and the lotus blossom repeated over and over in many of their designs.  Ancient Indian art seem to value an almost Mondrian style of mathematical balance, proportion and perfection in their work.

Children can appreciate using balance in art, even at young ages.    So when we made our mandala art project, it wasn't just my son and I:  we roped in his 4 year old sister to join the fun.

We gathered up items from our pantry:  quinoa, chia seeds, rice, pasta...and then we burrowed into our craft drawer and brought out small gems, beads, anything small enough to work in our designs.

We began by talking about the nature inspired patterns of Indian art.  We looked at mandala images and found the repeating patterns, and noted how they seem to be radial images that began from the heart, and moved outward.

Then, we began from the center of our paper plates, with glue and our various materials.  To start, I manipulated the glue at their direction, and they set down their materials.  

The designs became more complex as they moved outward from the center.

Soon, my son was handling the glue himself as he began to grasp the understanding that patterns produce complexity as they go.

In fact, he was enjoying the design he was creating so much, he wanted to just keep on going.

The real fun of this kind of art was that there was no real need to begin with a picture of something in your head.  Rather, you kept building upon the pattern you started with and were mesmerized at what you created as you went along.

Such an easy craft and yet the finished products seem complex and beautiful.

It's no wonder that creating mandalas is now a useful tool in therapy.  Don't miss out on including this delightful craft in your Ancient Indian History Unit.

The end results are incredibly rewarding!

If you enjoyed this post, don't forget to download our free "Indus River Valley" packet from our store:



And check out our other posts about Ancient India:

1.  FREE activity for "The Hunter and The Quail", an ancient Indian fable:


2.  The Indus River Valley Introduction

Art and Art History for Elementary Students

Our latest upload on the Glimmercat Education store is a bit different than what we have offered so far.  Mainly, this is because my children are still on the younger side and I am creating our curriculum for them as we go.

Caedyn paints like the Impressionists:  In all sorts of weather.

But my son took a very artistic bent last spring as we began studying the Impressionists and I began looking for more information on specific artists so I could pass it along to him.  Funny, I couldn't find a whole lot.  Although, there is certainly Art History available, I wasn't able to find much in the way of lesson plans geared for younger children that still managed to teach valuable information that they could grasp.

In fact, the truth is that I was so disappointed in what I was able to find, that I went to my computer and went after it myself.  There's always a bit of trepidation when entering waters that others have apparently left alone.  You think to yourself, "Maybe they know something I don't..."

But then, usually, you venture in anyway to discover it on your own.  Well, at least I do.  Or did.  Anyway, because I was gearing this curriculum for those who were a little older than my son, I asked a close friend to run through it with her 8 year old daughter who is home-schooled.

And so the photos I get to share with you today include the lovely Maranatha who accomplished one of the three Renoir lessons in a beautiful way.

Here she is, ready to begin.  Lesson 1 of  "Renoir: the Artist Who Loved Pretty Things" requires three print-outs, colored pencils, a paintbrush, watercolors and a paper plate.

After her mother read the lesson called "Renoir's Porcelain", which explains Renoir's early apprenticeship in a porcelain factory, Maranatha practice drawing leaves and flowers on our Art Activity Sheet.  First she drew the outlines as we suggest with colored pencil.  Then, she filled in the flower with watercolor.

Having tested her skill on this practice Activity Sheet, she is ready to move over to designing her porcelain plate...that is, her paper plate.

Again, she creates her flowers first with colored pencil, and then fills in the centers of her designs with watercolors.  And her finished plate looks incredible! Almost as lovely as her happy smile!

Beautiful work, Maranatha!

Also included in this packet are some copyright free images of a few of Renoir's works.  Although these are available online also, sometimes it's nice to be able to look at one that is in your hands.

Here is the image utilized in Lesson 3:

 The blotchy, quick style of painting (synonymous with the Impressionists) is very evident in this piece, and after discussing it, children have another Art Activity sheet to do.

And in this activity, they are to utilize cotton balls and Q-tips in acrylic paint to create the flower image.

Caedyn did a great job making an Impressionistic looking Black Eyed Susan.  And then, again in a follow up lesson, children are encouraged to use the same style of painting for a subject of their choice.

There are three lessons in total, which is quite enough for an elementary introduction to Renoir.  I'll be creating more of these Art Packets in the future.  In the meantime, this one is downloadable for $2.00 at my store:  https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Renoir-The-Artist-Who-Loved-Pretty-Things-2341661