While we have been spending a good deal of time exploring our solar system this Fall we certainly have not been neglecting our Story of the World studies. Our third week of Story of the World was "Christianity Comes to Britain." We learned how the Pope sent Augustine to England and how Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury. We also learned about Medieval Monasteries and how monks painstakingly copied books by hand. We enjoyed the story "Across a Dark and Wild Sea" which is about an Irish monk, Comcille, and how he spent his life as a scribe. As a craft project the girls made and used Quill Pens.
To make quills you begin by placing feathers in warm, soapy water and allowing them to soak for 15 minutes.
After the feathers have finished soaking you removed the first couple of inches of the feather and trim the end of the stalk at an angle. You then clean out any debris (we used a toothpick to do this).
We had been learning about illuminations so as well as the pages of "Across a Dark and Wild Sea" I put out a couple of the girl's coloring pages from the week to look at for ideas of what to write.
We purchased ink from Michael's and used a piece of felt as a blotter to remove excess ink from our quills
As you can see, it was a little bit tricky learning how to control the flow of ink so it appeared evenly. The girls were perhaps not the best at remembering to use the blotter each time they dipped their quills in the ink either... This activity definitely makes me thankful for modern pens!
Notice the dirty finger tips, again I'm thankful for modern writing tools! :)
We're throwing Tim's birthday/kiddo picture in here because the girl's both made cards for him with their quills and ink.
This was a neat project. Not the best one we've ever done, but relatively simple and the kids enjoyed the process of both making the quill and using them.
Looks like fun.
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