Metalworking

 We've shifted the focus from knights and the ruling classes over to artisans.

What I would have loved to do was do some real smithing, but, lacking a forge, anvil,  and the ability to melt metal, we felt this project, combined with You Tubes of actual smiths, was good enough!

I collected cans, filled them with water, and left them on the porch to freeze.  This touched off three days of fine weather with temps reaching 70, but, last weekend, they finally froze.

One kid at a time, each Zoomlian picked a can and drew a simple design on the outside with a water based marker. Gloves can be helpful here.

 They then hammered a nail through the can (into the ice) to form a pattern of holes along their design.  The key thing here is to rotate the can so that you are always hammering the nail straight down into the can.

Once the design was complete, we removed the ice with a quick soak of the can in warm water.

 Because the water had been in the can for several days, the dissolved air (which mixes in from the pressure in the water system) had dissipated, leaving the ice crystal clear.  You can do this with ice cubes by boiling the water before putting it in the trays, and, indeed, the "solid" ice was slower to melt than our usual "cloudy" ice.

Smaller kids needed more help, including heroic nail holding by a nervous adult.  But they all came out nicely, and no fingers were lost in the making of this project!

We put candles inside our completed lanterns, and ate dinner by candle light.   

It wasn't actually this dark in the dining room!




 By a happy coincidence, we ended up doing this craft on Candlemas (which you may call Groundhog Day), the traditional day for blessing candles!