Printing Press hands-on at home activity

See the source image
Fun fact: Printing press letters were stored in drawer-like cases. The capital letters were stored in the upper case, the small letters in the lower case. This is where we get the terms "upper case" and "lower case" letters.

Every book or unit study I've seen on the printing press (including my own book) has an activity to "make your own printing press"

In its simplest form, any soft object can be carved (balsa wood is pictured here). Potatoes are a popular medium. Most any material with a consistency soft enough to carve and firm enough to hold the shape will work for this quick and simple hands-on project to illustrate the process of printing used in the first printing press.

The material is carved to represent a shape, letter or symbol; then ink is applied and the carving is pressed onto paper.

The ink can be rolled on with a small roller. To ensure success with the young children trying out this project, we chose some tempura paint rather than a thinner and less predictable ink.

Keep in mind this produces a mirror image, not a replica. So, go ahead and try it. It is a fun, hands on project the kids can do while you tell them about Gutenberg's invention of the printing press.

If you are looking for a book to read out loud while your children experiment with different designs and colors, you might like this one called Johann Gutenberg and the Amazing Printing Press

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to can Cider to keep for the winter

Image
  In a previous post, here , I told you about our pear picking trip. Today, we met our friends with their truck full of pears at the local cider mill where we learned about the pressing process. We helped with the bottling. We got to bring home 13 gallons of fresh cider for our efforts.  Our friends freeze theirs, but my freezer is still full of the cow we bought in the spring, so we needed some other ideas. I have more basement pantry shelves available than I do freezer shelf space. So, tonight we canned some using the water bath method, processing 20 minutes.  If you are just learning about canning, I suggest buying a Ball Canning Book.   I prefer the older versions if you can find them because the recipes are often simpler and require ingredients I usually have on hand.  If you've never done any canning at all, and aren't ready to buy a book about it, then I suggest Taste of Home's online directions to help you start your first time. This is my first ti...
Read more

The Number - How much money do you need to retire and live the life you really want? Notes from Eisenberg

Image
  It’s tough right now. I know it. A cart of groceries at Walmart cost $250 yesterday. We didn’t even buy meat. It can be really devastating to look at your budget, to look at your life, and see that all the hard work you put into your career to get to where you are, and all the hard work you put into cutting bills and expenses so that finally the income exceeds the expenses more often than it doesn’t… and then see the prices of everything you need skyrocket so fast that all that work is lost. It feels like a punch in the gut, and then the government follows it up with an uppercut by telling you that inflation isn’t really that high. If you’re young, you still have a lifetime of earning to make up for it. But, if you’re over 50 you’re looking at some harsh realities. You can’t afford to dip into savings now and you don’t have a lot of opportunities to increase earnings. If you are still working, you can still be saving, so there’s no time like the present to figure out how much...
Read more

Homemade Laundry Soap Directions and Tips

Image
  To enjoy the Vacation Education lifestyle, it takes time and money. Making money takes time and energy too. To help my family earn our way to free time and vacation education, I like to find ways to NOT spend the money we have worked so hard to earn. Making laundry soap is one of those projects that pays for itself over and over again.  I invested $17 in these two items, Washing Soda and Borax. That was nearly five years ago. I have made enough laundry detergent to do laundry for our family and still have lots of these ingredients left for years to come. We do about 15 loads of laundry per week for comparison. (This seems excessive to me, so I am looking for ways to reduce this, but for now my best strategy is to save on the soap itself) You can DIY this laundry soap too. There are lots of variations of this recipe on the internet since making laundry soap was made popular by the Duggars tv show. I can get a bar of Fels-Naptha at my local grocer for about $1. Walmart has the...
Read more