Easy ways for kids to make wooden chests? (Or is there a better project for the 1549-1849 period)

Last year, I taught Medieval history at my kids' homeschool co-op. This year, I'm teaching the era from the Renaissance to 1849 (apparently, this is called the "premodern period." But, that name is LAME and vague. Anyone have any good names for this period of time?). Last year, we had the big project of making wattle and daub houses. This project was a big hit, and the kids learned a lot.

Some of the wattle and daub houses they made

But, what sort of multi-week project could I do for this new period of history? I was thinking that since the era has a lot of travel (and includes the Golden Age of Piracy!), that making a chest could be a cool project. And they could put inside the chest the other things we make that people of the time period would have, like horn books, feather quills, etc.

My only issue is, they don't really have access to a woodshop, and I'd really like to make the chests out of wood. Does anyone have any ideas of ways to have kids build wooden chests?

Or maybe you have an idea for a different project that would teach the skills of this era?

Thanks!!!

You could maybe make chests out of ice lolly sticks (popsicle sticks?) or matchsticks? You can buy them for craft use if the kids can't eat enough lollies between now and then!


how about the Age_of_Enlightenment - progress in science and engineering (not all forwards) most of the same date range and less fraught perhaps than age of discovery


history of balloon flights
Could they make a hot air balloon (first flight 1783)? is that too dangerous for little ones? Oh here! : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aazlvwdgyxw you can make it fly with a hair drier or pop corn popper. Maybe you could do individual ones that don't fly and one big one to play with flying.

Seems like as a kid I made something similar out of pop-sickle sticks so I asked Mr. Google:







I am looking forward to what other ideas folks have.

The Anarchist's Design book by Christopher Schwarz has several wooden chest designs that were inspired by history. And Lost Art Press gives PDFs out for free.

Anarchists Design Book

If you (or someone) can do the cutting in a woodshop, it seems like the assembly could be done in the classroom by providing "kits" for the chests.

https://www.instructables.com/Pirates-treasure-chest/

Nancy Reading wrote:how about the Age_of_Enlightenment - progress in science and engineering (not all forwards) most of the same date range and less fraught perhaps than age of discovery

What about "Age of Exploration"? People are exploring new ideas, new places, new ways of living.

It's such a hard period, because it's fraught with so much yuckiness. There was a huge feeling of "We're enlightened and you're not." And, a lot of "discovering" of things that other's had actually already discovered. There was a lot of exploitation and slavery...and I get a bit depressed thinking about it.

It doesn't help that the history book we're using (Story of the World, Early Modern Times), spends most of it's time talking about how one country was taking over another country, or this ruler was doing this, that or the other thing. For some reason, it really focuses on the reformation, with a lot of negative talk about the Catholic church. It's weird.

I'd much rather focus on what inventions were happening, or what the common person was doing and learning. Especially since it's a homeschool co-op, with parents having so many different religious and political views, I really want to stay out of "Cider Press" talk in the classroom, as much as possible. I'm just not sure how to when studying this era of history.  

history of balloon flights
Could they make a hot air balloon (first flight 1783)? is that too dangerous for little ones? Oh here! : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aazlvwdgyxw you can make it fly with a hair drier or pop corn popper. Maybe you could do individual ones that don't fly and one big one to play with flying.

Oooh, that's an interesting idea. I was thinking about covering ships, but hot air balloons (and trains!) would be great things to cover as well! There were a lot of interesting advances in technology that I hadn't really thought about (I was thinking mostly the Colonial/Revolutionary times), and hadn't gotten my brain to the later bits of the era yet!

For the medieval class last year, I focused on: Boats, books, and buildings. Maybe this year could be: Transportation, Technology, and ..... (Not sure what the other T-word would be. Tastes? Traditions? Transformation? Something else? Maybe something about the advances in communication, such as the post office, letters, printing presses, newspapers, etc)

Hmmm, we could also make ice cream! Everyone could take turns churning it, and then we all share it at the end of class! (I might need two different ice cream makers so there's one with dairy-free ice cream).

I also want to make tin can lanterns, beeswax candles, horn books, and maybe compasses. When was soap invented? (Looks like there were forms of it back to 2800 BC, and soap was being made in the medieval times, but it really kicked into action in the 1600s, and the invention of soda ash was 1791)Soap making is likely too dangerous if we make soap like they used to. I think it'd be super cool if they got to make their own soap, though! Sally Pointer has a video on making soap balls, I wonder if we could do some of that...

Printing would be fun! They could make their own newspaper with potato prints. If each child made one or two letters they could then share the results to make messages. Ideally they need to set them into blocks though to get the true meaning of typeset.

source

What about building boats? Each kid could choose what they want to make - a canoe, a sailboat, a row boat, a "sailing ship",  one of those little boats which you propel with an elastic band twisted around a piece of wood to make a paddle boat, etc - and talk about who was using that type of boat at the time, what is on their boat, and where they are from/where they are going, and what groups they are encountering.

Maybe make a manifest, or a captain's log book, or an explorer's diary... Their boats could carry their things from the era that you make?

Edit - oops, just saw you already did boats. Hmm...  

Catie George wrote:What about building boats? Each kid could choose what they want to make - a canoe, a sailboat, a row boat, a "sailing ship",  one of those little boats which you propel with an elastic band twisted around a piece of wood to make a paddle boat, etc - and talk about who was using that type of boat at the time, what is on their boat, and where they are from/where they are going, and what groups they are encountering.

Maybe make a manifest, or a captain's log book, or an explorer's diary... Their boats could carry their things from the era that you make?

Edit - oops, just saw you already did boats. Hmm...  

If I hadn't already done a bunch of navigation stuff last year (we made mariner's quadrants, did dead reckoning, and made clay boats), I could totally have done all of those this year. But, alas!

I am wondering about making putt-putt/pop-pop boats. I'm not sure if it'll be too dangerous for little kids, with all the sharp metal edges and all.

You can make a small-scale chest with just hand tools if your students have good knife skills -- I made one a number of years ago, and I still use it to carry game pieces. It may look big in the picture, but it's only ~50mm (~2in)  tall. This is a viking-era sea chest, which is hard because it requires a tenon and has no 90-degree angles, but in your period, there are heaps of much more easily made square-sided chests and trunks. At this small scale, you can let wood glue (if you're really keen, the students can make their own hide glue for joinery) act in place of nails and dovetail joints.

Otherwise, if you purchase wide-width (250mm) timber, only a few saw-cuts are necessary to make a 6-board chest (achievable with a hand saw), and it can be put together with nails and a couple strap hinges.

Doing some hands-on food preservation common in the period (e.g. salting pork) might also be an interesting craft. When I was very young, my class did a trip to a 'pioneer school', and the candle-dipping and having each student do their math workings writing with chalk on a slate board were some of the most memorable experiences.

What's your budget?
I was thinking if you wanted to go a bit bigger than popsicle sticks, if you could buy cedar lathe (or get some donated) it's sort of like larger scale popsicle sticks. The tongue depressors we bought are way wimpier than popsicle sticks, so I wouldn't go there myself.

Nicole Alderman wrote:I am wondering about making putt-putt/pop-pop boats. I'm not sure if it'll be too dangerous for little kids, with all the sharp metal edges and all.

Thanks for sending me down that rabbit hole! It looks like the boat can be made from anything and there are various options for the boiler too. The safest might be a metal coil, if you can find some small diameter copper pipe.

I found some nice videos using sardine cans or similar - making holes in those might be more tricky, as they would also need sealing up. A folded card boat is not impossible either.

M Broussard wrote:Doing some hands-on food preservation common in the period (e.g. salting pork) might also be an interesting craft. When I was very young, my class did a trip to a 'pioneer school', and the candle-dipping and having each student do their math workings writing with chalk on a slate board were some of the most memorable experiences.

I'm definitely planning on making candles (and tin can lanterns!). Chalk & blackboard is a really cool idea! I have a crazy amount of chalk dust (I needed a lot to make milk paint for my garage, and got too much), and have gum arabic and pigments. I wonder if I could get a donation from some landscape company for pieces of slate.....

I'm wondering whether subjects around the British Agricultural Revolution could be made interesting for the children. Although known as British in Britain, a similar change was occurring all over Europe and contributed to the growing wealth and population of the nations. As part of the cultural revolution in Europe step changes in agriculture meant more animals could be kept overwinter for example due to fodder crops such as mangelwurzel and other roots. The idea of crop rotation, green manures, seed drills, and even the modern plough has it's place in history. I don't suppose you'll have time to plant a garden but maybe some sort of garden game could be devised.

from a textile point of view, it's when cotton starts to replace wool and linen in Europe.  The invention of the cotton gin (pasta roller) was a huge thing in the early 1700s-ish.  Started the industrial revolution in the UK.

Farming - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jethro_Tull_(agriculturist) and the agricultural revolution had this crazy idea of instead of broadcasting the seeds, what if we planted in rows and weeded/harrowed between them.  Is there a garden and something fast growing like radishes?  One of my favourite memories from school was when we planted marigold seeds in cups with our names on it.  Then we watched them grow each day.  Eventually it was a mothers day gift.  But growing things was cool!

Food - Such a huge expansion in foods in the UK at this time.  Beet sugar, fruit, and tree sap as the main source of sweetness to cain sugar.  And curry!  

So this is a time when Christian Europe is recovering from some massive population loss when most of the technology is based on human labour (before that time, many laws prevented new technology that took jobs away from people).  Now we have no one to do the work, we embrace technology.  Add to that the scientific knowlage from the Arabic Libraries  in Spain (recently reconquered) are now being translated into Latin.  Such a wonderful time of change and a scary one too.  

And the European age of exploration (but that also has some pretty troubling side effects that might not be good to get too close to it in a class with young kids)

r ranson wrote:from a textile point of view, it's when cotton starts to replace wool and linen in Europe.  The invention of the cotton gin (pasta roller) was a huge thing in the early 1700s-ish.  Started the industrial revolution in the UK.

Part of me really wants to get raw cotton and process and turn it into string (last year we did that with wool roving and processed nettle fiber). But then I'm reminded of this news story: Washington family claims middle school students asked to clean cotton for school lesson.

Twins Emzayia and Zyeshauwne Feazell said they were in their social studies class on May 3 when they said the teacher pulled out a box of raw cotton and told the class they were going to do a "fun" activity. The girls added the students were subsequently instructed to clean freshly picked cotton as part of a classroom assignment to see who could do so the fastest.

....

"The students were learning about the industrial revolution and the cotton gin was discussed," according to a statement from the Spokane Public School district.

The twins' parents called for the principal to be fired. Aside from telling kids, "Who can process it the fastest?!" that sounds like the sort of lesson plan I would do. (I hate competitive stuff, and it usually ends in sadness in the classroom, so I avoid it there, too. But, it doesn't sound like being told to process quickly was the problem, the problem was the cotton itself). I would feel terrible making a traumatic learning experience for someone, especially when that's not my goal at all.

Farming - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jethro_Tull_(agriculturist) and the agricultural revolution had this crazy idea of instead of broadcasting the seeds, what if we planted in rows and weeded/harrowed between them.  Is there a garden and something fast growing like radishes?  One of my favourite memories from school was when we planted marigold seeds in cups with our names on it.  Then we watched them grow each day.  Eventually it was a mothers day gift.  But growing things was cool!

Their history book actually goes into this, and so this would be a really good tie-in. Alas, the kids all planted seeds last year in science class, so the science teacher already stole that activity (I don't blame him--it's a good activity!)

Food - Such a huge expansion in foods in the UK at this time.  Beet sugar, fruit, and tree sap as the main source of sweetness to cain sugar.  And curry!

Ooooh, we do potluck days a few times during the school year, so maybe we could do a themed one! (The medieval potluck last year was a lot of fun! One guy even made lamb pies, and someone else made Saint Agatha's Breasts)

And the European age of exploration (but that also has some pretty troubling side effects that might not be good to get too close to it in a class with young kids)

I'm currently thinking of tackling that bit by using pirates. Kids love pirates. And piracy/privateering played a huge role during Age of Exploration as countries uses privateers to weaken their political enemies.

I'm thinking we'll spend a few weeks learning about various pirates around the world, and dispelling pirate myths. We'll make flags (if I treat a white cotton sheet with starch or gum arabic, we could paint on it with watercolors, right? I think?) and pouches. I'm thinking if each kid makes their own pouch, I can fill them sneakily with quarters, common trade goods (like semi-precious stones, maybe cheap rings). Then, the next week, I'll put the filled pouches into a treasure chest, hide it on the school grounds, and they'll have to use a treasure map and compass to find it!

I never did update this, but I ended up nixing the chest idea and going with having the kids make their own pouches, which then got put inside the treasure chest for the kids to find!

It ended up being a nice multi-week project, with the kids learning about American Colonial-era pouches (slides are here, if you're interested in seeing pouches from the 1500s to 1700s) and Colonial Era cloth & dyes (slides). The kids got to make and embroider their own design, and also dye their own drawstrings.

That project all took place at the first half of the school year, and I'm now working on a big project for the second half of the school year--namely kite making! The kids will get to chose between paper and cloth for their kite, learn about kites through history, learn about Ben Franklin, learn about the invention of watercolors paints, and make and decorate their kites in the process!