Living history crafts for the Northern Wei Dynasty? (Need ideas for Historical Disney Princess class

Some of you might remember my Historically Accurate Disney Princess Coloring Pages thread from a few years back. Well, this year, I have the honor of teaching a class about it! The lesson's will go something like:

Learn about where/when a Disney Princess might have lived if they were real

• Place a marker on a map for where they probably would have lived
• Place a marker on a timeline for when they probably would have lived
• Learn about what the people there wore
• Learn about what the people there ate
• Learn about what the people there lived in

Do some crafts/activities that people during that time/place would have done--bonus points if it relates to the movie in some way

We'll be going through the princesses in largely historical order: Mulan -> Moana -> Merida -> Aurora -> Snow White -> Rapunzel  -> Pocahontas -> Ariel -> Jasmine -> Belle -> Elsa & Anna -> Cinderella -> Tiana -> Mirabel

That means, I'm starting with Mulan (unless we want to count Megara of Ancient Greece?)

Sadly, my education was rather lacking in teaching me anything really about China. I know quite a bit about Europe and the Middle East....not much about the far east. I really don't want to botch up China, and I don't want to do cheap crafts that don't resemble the techniques or appearance of actual items from the time period. I want the kids to feel like they're in the era when they make something from the era.

Does anyone have ideas of historical craft ideas from 386-589 AD in China? I'll have 5-11 year olds in my classes, but usually lots of parent volunteers.

I don't know much about china at that time. But I think silk production comes about that time or earlier.

Don't suppose there are enough mulberry near by to raise silk, but they do need a lot of attention the last 10 days before cocoon and then there is the thing about death (either killing or letting them die of dehydration).  So maybe sticking to embroidery, those beautiful knot buttons (frogs), and the like.

Calligraphy and the four treasures are older or about that time (paper, ink, ink stone, and paperweight see below for the correct ones).

Pottery and dye make a big advancement, in part from demand from the west increasing (middle east, rome, Constantinople).  Silk road might be a thing to explore.

I am trying to remember if paper money started then.  It was a thing by the time islam is firmly established (700ish ad).   Traders had to submit their gold upon entering china and use paper money for trade...it ruffled some feathers as they had never heard of it before.

Also, tea.

r ranson wrote:I don't know much about china at that time. But I think silk production comes about that time or earlier.

Don't suppose there are enough mulberry near by to raise silk, but they do need a lot of attention the last 10 days before cocoon and then there is the thing about death (either killing or letting them die of dehydration).  So maybe sticking to embroidery, those beautiful knot buttons (frogs), and the like.

I have found a reason, every year, to show my kids your silk moth video. It's always a big hit! (They like it more than the one by Liziqi). Your video has resulted in many children saying, "I want a silk moth" (much to their parents' dismay, hahahaha!)


I'm quite happy to realize I'll have another chance to show a new batch of kids your video!

I do have a mulberry tree, but I'm not up to trying to feed them for that long, and the leaves will likely start falling not long after school starts. I might run out of food for them!

Calligraphy and the four treasures are older (paper, ink, ink stone, and paperweight).

Ooooh, this is really tempting! What to paint, though? I thought about having them make a fan, but that took me down a long rabbit hole of not knowing which fans were used during what period, or how to make them relatively authentically. They're usually made out of silk!



It looks like scroll wall paintings might have been a thing? I have a bunch of dowels left over from making kites in my history class, so maybe that's an option?

Pottery and dye make a big advancement, in part from demand from the west increasing (middle east, rome, Constantinople).  Silk road might be a thing to explore.

My more normal history classes love an activity that I do called Silk Trade Game (or World Trade Game, when we revamped it for the 1800's because the kids really wanted it again this year). I usually do it a little further into the year, though, as the kids are more familiar with all the different countries by that point. I hadn't thought about doing it in my Historical Disney Princess class, but that's a really great idea!

I am trying to remember if paper money started then.  It was a thing by the time islam is firmly established (700ish ad).   Traders had to submit their gold upon entering china and use paper money for trade...it ruffled some feathers as they had never heard of it before.

It looks like this started in the Tang Dynasty (after the Northern Wei) and the pretty frog buttons started in the Song dynasty. But both are really fun ideas!

Also, tea.

Oooooh! They could drink tea while I teach! Great idea!!!

Paper making.  Paper changed the world and what we think of as paper today came from china.  It would have been perfected by then.

What about paper making and ink making, and natural dyes. Toys cut from wood and scrap blanking making. Calligraphy and poetry

r ranson wrote:Paper making.  Paper changed the world and what we think of as paper today came from china.  It would have been perfected by then.

Do you think it would matter if I made paper the European way, with ripped up cloth and torn paper? I made paper two years ago with my Medieval history class, and I still have quite a bit of cloth pulp and the materials to make it. But, in China they didn't use old cloth to make paper. Does it matter?

Ulla Bisgaard wrote:What about paper making and ink making, and natural dyes.

When we get to Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), I plan on doing plant dying, especially with cochineal because it turns both pink and blue.



I'm also planning on doing spinning with Aurora...because spindles. I wonder if I can find a spindle made of spindle wood?

Ulla Bisgaard wrote: Toys cut from wood and scrap blanking making.

I'm not familiar with scrap blanking making. Do you know of any good resources about it?

Ulla Bisgaard wrote:Calligraphy and poetry

Ooooh, this is a good idea! Then it's not just "paint on the paper" but write a poem and illustrate it to make beautiful art. I like this!

Nicole Alderman wrote:

r ranson wrote:Paper making.  Paper changed the world and what we think of as paper today came from china.  It would have been perfected by then.

Do you think it would matter if I made paper the European way, with ripped up cloth and torn paper? I made paper two years ago with my Medieval history class, and I still have quite a bit of cloth pulp and the materials to make it. But, in China they didn't use old cloth to make paper. Does it matter?

To me, the important thing is the migration of ideas.  We have paper because china.  Making stuff rocks when young and it makes remembering stronger.

My history of asia is more japan focused, but if memory serves, there were many different ways to make paper by the time it became common there.  Paper with more rag content had different uses than the calligraphy paper.  

For older kids, some sort of analysis they can do between paper we know now and paper from that time and place.  Was china the place with mulberry bass paper (back to silk again...silk chow is a food you can buy to raise them any time of year).  A bit of mulberry bark and show the fibres beneath the bark/inner layer.  And maybe the conversation goes to other plants (local ones?) that can become paper.  

Just spitballing

the four treasures

Four Treasures of the Study (文房四宝 wén fáng sì bǎo) is an expression used to refer to the ink brush, inkstick, paper and inkstone used in Chinese calligraphy and painting. The name stems from the time of the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420-589 AD). Brushes and ink are two of the legendary “Four Treasures of the Study” tools of Chinese calligraphers, painters and poets over thousands of years. The other vital elements of culture are the rice paper (zhi), and the inkstone (yan) for grinding the solidified inksticks.

I got them wrong upthread.  

Nicole Alderman wrote:

Ulla Bisgaard wrote: Toys cut from wood and scrap blanking making.

I'm not familiar with scrap blanking making. Do you know of any good resources about it?

Ulla Bisgaard wrote:Calligraphy and poetry

Ooooh, this is a good idea! Then it's not just "paint on the paper" but write a poem and illustrate it to make beautiful art. I like this!

In that time, cloth was very precious and was recycled many time. The nobility would often only wear a piece of clothing once before it was discarded. Thrifty people would keep and eye out for it, and pick it out of the trash. Larger pieces was use to make clothes (though there were laws about what you can wear according to status). Any leftovers, was sown together to make blankets. Sometimes they would cut and sow the into long strips, that was then braided. The braided strips, was then sown together to make thick blankets.

r ranson wrote:
To me, the important thing is the migration of ideas.  We have paper because china.  Making stuff rocks when young and it makes remembering stronger.

My history of asia is more japan focused, but if memory serves, there were many different ways to make paper by the time it became common there.  Paper with more rag content had different uses than the calligraphy paper.  

For older kids, some sort of analysis they can do between paper we know now and paper from that time and place.  Was china the place with mulberry bass paper (back to silk again...silk chow is a food you can buy to raise them any time of year).  A bit of mulberry bark and show the fibres beneath the bark/inner layer.  And maybe the conversation goes to other plants (local ones?) that can become paper.  

I was looking for what paper was made of during the Northern Wei Dynasty, and found this interesting tidbit (fromPaper in Ancient China):

World History Encyclopedia wrote:There is ample archaeological evidence of primitive paper types from the 2nd century BCE in China, largely using hemp. It is believed that the invention of this early form of paper was accidental after clothes, which were made of hemp, were left too long after washing, and a residue formed in the water which could then be pressed into a useful new material. The traditional date for the invention of more refined paper has long been 105 CE. Cai Lun, the director of the Imperial Workshops at Luoyang, is the one credited with creating paper by using soaked and then pressed plant fibres which were dried in sheets on wooden frames or screens. Cumbersome bamboo or wooden strips and expensive silk had been used for centuries as a surface for writing but, after much endeavour, a lighter and cheaper alternative had finally been found in the form of paper scrolls.

I had not known they were originally making paper from (hemp) cloth like those in the western world made it from linen. Fascinating!

Reading further:

World History Encyclopedia wrote: Fibres from many different plants, the stems of grasses, vegetable matter, hemp, tree bark, and even rags were used and blended in a constant quest of experimentation to find the cheapest mix of materials which produced the highest quality of paper. Rattan replaced the early hemp paper and was favoured for centuries until it was replaced by bamboo fibres as the most common raw material from the 8th century CE. One of the reasons for rattan's replacement was that the demand for paper was so great the slow-growing plant had almost been wiped out in certain regions of China. Bamboo grows much quicker than hemp and so was a significantly cheaper option. From the Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE) paper production techniques became even better and the main raw material was now the boiled bark of the mulberry tree. Chinese paper was of such high quality that it was traded to foreign states along the Silk Road.

It looks like the mulberry paper came later, but I had no idea, until today, that paper was made with mulberry bark! It makes me want to do some pruning of my mulberry tree and play with the bark.

I know from turning nettle to paper, that it's a PAIN to turn raw fiber into pulp. So much boiling and beating and mashing! I'd probably have to preboil in alkali the various fibers and then have them mash them. But, what fibrous plants do I have enough of? I'm going to be using the nettle a lot in my Flower & Forest Fairy class, so I don't think I'll have extra for this.

R Ranson wrote:Just spitballing

Spitballing is great! It's better to have too many ideas than not enough or no good ones. We find the good ones by spitballing.

My current thoughts are to:

Day 1:

Read the original Ballad of Mulan to the kids--it's super short

Maybe bring in my loom and show them the loom, since Mulan is weaving at the beginning of the poem, and textile production was a huge part of life for women

Show them pictures of ancient hanging scroll art. I might not be able to find much from the Northern Wei Dynasty, so I'll probably augment with newer stuff, too, to inspire the kids

Have the kids make their own hanging scroll with a poem &/or art, and use paintbrushes for the writing/painting

I'm wondering what to make the hanging scroll out of? I have dowels for the handles, but what material is the best for the scroll. My school has butcher paper, cardstock, normal paper, and (I'm pretty sure) some of that 11x17 paper tabloid-size paper. If I cut the 11x17inches in have vertically to be 5.5x17, it'd probably be pretty scroll like. I might also be able to raid the art room for watercolor paper, which will likely do better for making calligraphy art.

For the second lesson on Mulan, I think we'll do paper making. It might just be mashing up old paper with some cloth. I'd like to add in mashing plant fibers...but I'm not sure which ones would be good.

Any ideas for proliferous plant fibers in the Pacific Northwest? I'm already using my nettle for Flower & Forest Fairy class, so I might not have enough left over for paper making for my 24 Historical Disney Princess students.

This is when I realize that scroll paintings are more complicated than I thought.

First I watched this video on how they framed art with a scroll backing at the Brittish Museum



That's....that's a lot of work to make paper & silk roll-able without being creased! It's amazing, but far more than we could do in class.

I tried finding resources for making scroll art with kids. I was not terribly impressed.



This one didn't even use a stick for the scroll aspect. It doesn't look it could even be rolled up, which is the whole point of scroll paintings.



This one seems a bit more historical. But, will those materials even roll? This really makes me wish I spoke chinese, because there's probably resources for kids doing this in China that I just can't access.



This one is just...odd. I think they creases are trying to look like the early scrolls made of bamboo slats? But, from what I've seen, this isn't how people used bamboo slats for writing. And it doesn't look like Chinese art. This is what I'm most worried about when doing art projects from other countries.

This at least looks more like Chinese looks a bit more accurate in style. They're at least working off of a primary document



She used butcher paper, and didn't even try to find a way to mount it.

I'm going to keep looking at videos trying to find a better way.

This tutorial hurt me. They didn't learn how to use any of the material or techniques people in China used. They drew everything with pencils and markers, rather than learning how to draw/write with paint brushes. I do like his ideas for how to hang the scroll and attach the ribbons.



I like this one much better. It actually goes into the materials, method, and history. Apparently, she also made the other video which didn't have the hanging mechanism. I noticed the date on her video, and realized it was the covid era. One nice thing that came from that era is the amount of tutorials that ended up online from teachers and museums making and posting videos when they couldn't interact in person. This being covid era also explains why she didn't create a hanging mechanism--she wanted to make sure all the students could do them with materials at home.

my memory of scroll painting as a young kid.  the teacher used stiff, brittle paper and didn't expect that we would be rolling it up to take it home.  it didn't look good when it got home.  

I don't know the solution to this.  Just a possible pitfall.  

This one is neat for showing how they would paint on silk.



Once again, I'm getting a bit lost in what was actually done during the Northern Wei Dynasty, and what is done later. But, wow, it sure was impressive to watch as an artist. Her artistry is impressive!

I think I somewhere saw that they used tissue or rice paper, that was glued to fabric. This made them a lot more movable. I will try and see if I can figure out where I read/saw it. Ancient Chinas history is a hobby of mine, and has been for over 30 years, so I can’t always recall where I got the information from. I will ask my oldest, since it’s her interest as well.

This tutorial Chinese Landscape Scroll Paintings for 3rd Grade reminds me of why I like to give kids historical pigments when making ancient art. These paintings are great in that she found a way to roll them up, and put in the buffer areas at the top and the bottom that were used to protect the art from damage due to rolling. But, I think the art would have looked far more like the style if they used the same colors

Love the volcano!

When I did my 1700's kite project, I gave the kids mostly historical colors, and then let them use conventional water colors if they really wanted it. I think it resulted in a far more historical-looking kite, but the kids still got to express themselves.

Ulla Bisgaard wrote:I think I somewhere saw that they used tissue or rice paper, that was glued to fabric. This made them a lot more movable. I will try and see if I can figure out where I read/saw it. Ancient Chinas history is a hobby of mine, and has been for over 30 years, so I can’t always recall where I got the information from. I will ask my oldest, since it’s her interest as well.

Thank you! I really appreciate all your help! I've spent most of my life nerding out about European medieval history, and I know how nuanced everything in history is. I really want to do China justice.

I do have a lot of cloth bedsheets left over from the kite making project, so we could potentially use them as backings. But, I really don't want to hem all the cloth, and I'm not sure if I want to spend mine/the kids time applying sizing to cloth. I might "cheat" and use butcher paper. That would allow the kids to chose the color of their boarder if they want to be more modern.  

I really like this article about scrolls and the history about them. Hanging scrolls they mostly used silk, and there were rules about where to place a poem and decorations.
I have also added a few examples. The colors used in paintings were limited. Many only used black and red, or a mixture of those. Other colors was used sparingly.

If you stumble across any non disney movies from that time, let me know.  (disney movies all have a 6month wait list at the library)

Now I'm curious about it and would love to see how it matches with my understanding of the history of japan.  

r ranson wrote:my memory of scroll painting as a young kid.  the teacher used stiff, brittle paper and didn't expect that we would be rolling it up to take it home.  it didn't look good when it got home.  

I don't know the solution to this.  Just a possible pitfall.  

Yeah, that's what I'm worried about. The whole point of a scroll painting is to roll it up! Rolling scrolls up is fun!

Butcher paper might be a good option, as I made my giant timeline from butcher paper and it's held up surprisingly well over the past 3 years. I roll it and unroll it a lot. It does like to roll back up, though. That's one thing I worry about with using paper for the backing--if you go to hang the painting, it's going to unroll.

Maybe cloth is the best option for the backing?

Maybe I want to make this project take a few class periods so they can really make something they're proud of (and I don't feel bad about spending hours prepping fabric for the backing).

Class 1: Background about Mulan, looking at ancient scroll paintings, sketching out a design. This might be the first class of the year, so they'll be less time for craft and more time with introductions, learning about out-of-school-work, etc. And, honestly, most of the time my students never use the sketches

Class 2: Paint the design. We could do ink first, and then use historical watercolors? Or just use historical watercolors, including black.

Class 3: Mount the painting on it's backing and attach dowels, hanging string, and ribbon,

I might do papermaking when we learn about Belle, since we'll be making books then.

That sounds like a plan. Also, you don’t have to hem all of that cloth. You can use glue instead, and either fold it back (use an iron first), or just leave the edges as is, after adding the glue.

Ulla Bisgaard wrote:That sounds like a plan. Also, you don’t have to hem all of that cloth. You can use glue instead, and either fold it back (use an iron first), or just leave the edges as is, after adding the glue.

I've used Elmer's glue in the past to seal the edges of cloth when I made treasure maps for my kids' birthdays. It does a great job of preventing unraveling, but it does make it stiff. I sealed my last map with gum arabic. It was equally stiff at the edges (this is great for maps, but maybe not for hanging art). Hide glue (gelatin) also makes fabric stiff. I'm wondering if it matters for the hanging art if the edges are a little stiff? Or maybe wheat paste would be a better glue? I've never experimented with it because we don't eat wheat and so have no wheat flour in the house.

that sounds like an awesome project.

I want to be a kid and join in.

r ranson wrote:that sounds like an awesome project.

I want to be a kid and join in.

Do it! Just join in online and have some fun!

I wanted to test out how well butcher paper worked, since that's a lot easier than using cloth and rice paper. I learned from my kite project that butcher paper holds up surprisingly well against water colors. I had kids using WAY too much water on their kite, and yet, no kite got holes. That is not the case with normal printer paper!

My daughter wanted to join in on the fun. We both sketched out our designs on paper, and then painted with ink (which I discovered was water soluble). She kept hers black and white, and I added a little bit of red ocher and (I'm pretty sure) turquoise green, because that looked the most like the green used in the old hand scrolls.

I'm really not used to "drawing" with paintbrushes. I most definitely love sketching with pencil much more! But, I think the use of a paint brush and more historical colors really does help with the appearance, I think.

I have thicker, darker butcher paper for making packages, and thought I'd try that for the backing. It was very curled. I tried making mine with the curled paper, and I ironed my daughter's paper. I used conventional glue, because I don't have wheat paste and thought I might end up using the same glue at school, and wanted to test out how it worked.

I applied glue to the upper and bottom edges of the background paper and then rolled the dowel up in the paper. I figured this would add a bit more weight. More weight is definetly needed to help it lay flat. I fatter dowel would have done a ton of good, but I just have these skinny ones.

My daughter originally didn't want to have hers be a scroll, but I told her she could add tassel weights (fuchin) to the bottom like the Japanese did, and she was all about that.

May I suggest another aspect of ancient Chinese culture: physical culture which goes under many different names and forms.  One very old set of exercises still in use today (so thousands of years older than Mulan) is known as the Eight Brocades.  The children might like to watch an old Chinese man in a traditional costume performing the exercises.  I think the first one if very doable.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ifZX3tSiBzI