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"I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens, but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string."
— L.M. Montgomery

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Making Candles

The history book we are using with the kids right now is called Americans Kids in History: Colonial Days. In the book we follow a fictional family that would be typical of that time. The book is filled with not only facts about life back then, but also packed full of hands on activities for the kids (and adults) to do. This week we made candles.

Hand dipping 10 candles (two on each string) took about 4 hours. The kids did a far share of the dipping on their set of candles, with Mama and Daddy finishing them. 30-40 dips with about 60 seconds between dipping.
We ate dinner tonight by the light of the candles! And talked about what it would be like back then with no electricity and light from only candles or oil.

We used beeswax and colored it with a few broken crayons.
First six candles drying. The kids and us big ups sure had fun doing this. We also tried our hand at making candle holders, but they were a flop, thanks to not having clay, but  fake molding stuff.  We will try them again as soon as we get some air drying clay from in town.
Aaron and I really enjoyed making the candles and both would like to get a candle mold and make the candles we use. This was a fun project and we can not wait until next weeks history lesson!

3 comments:

  1. Looks like fun!! We'll have to give that a shot when we get to colonial times. We're still stuck back in the middle ages! LOL (Which had candles too, I suppose!)

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  2. It was a lot of fun. Have fun being "stuck" way back then! :)

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  3. I enjoyed your blog, making candles is a lot of fun. I help everyone can do this.

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