So, what did the Civil War soldiers use when they wanted to write home? Quill or nib pens and dipping ink. And these kids complain about how long it takes them to type up their stories on the computer! For lack of an abundance of goose quills, Mr. Finn sent the kids out to get a stick to use as their pen. He sharpened the tip into a point and in lieu of ink wells, we used the bottoms of plastic cups filled with liquid watercolor.
It worked amazingly well! What's more, the kids LOVED to write with their pens, dipping away happily as they thought of more details to write in their thank you letters to Charlie and Jackie.
We used the old stamped paper that Charlie had given us to write our letters.
Some kids kept writing until they ran out of room!
After we were finished, we had to make our own envelopes as they didn't have ready made envelopes like you buy in the store. We even stamped our letters with Confederate stamp replicas. Then, we loaded them into a satchel and sent Dylan as our postal carrier next door to find Charlie and Jackie to deliver the mail. I think they really enjoyed their letters and we certainly enjoyed experimenting with pen and ink. Hopefully next year Charlie and Jackie can come in and be our guest teachers again. (Charlie told me not to say "expert" but I sure think he qualifies!)
So, what did the Civil War soldiers use when they wanted to write home? Quill or nib pens and dipping ink. And these kids complain about how long it takes them to type up their stories on the computer! For lack of an abundance of goose quills, Mr. Finn sent the kids out to get a stick to use as their pen. He sharpened the tip into a point and in lieu of ink wells, we used the bottoms of plastic cups filled with liquid watercolor.
It worked amazingly well! What's more, the kids LOVED to write with their pens, dipping away happily as they thought of more details to write in their thank you letters to Charlie and Jackie.
We used the old stamped paper that Charlie had given us to write our letters.
Some kids kept writing until they ran out of room!
After we were finished, we had to make our own envelopes as they didn't have ready made envelopes like you buy in the store. We even stamped our letters with Confederate stamp replicas. Then, we loaded them into a satchel and sent Dylan as our postal carrier next door to find Charlie and Jackie to deliver the mail. I think they really enjoyed their letters and we certainly enjoyed experimenting with pen and ink. Hopefully next year Charlie and Jackie can come in and be our guest teachers again. (Charlie told me not to say "expert" but I sure think he qualifies!)
Wow, sharpened sticks as pens and water colour as ink? I'm sure Charlie and Jackie were very impressed with all your thank-you letters. I enjoyed the photos and could easily see how well these stick-pens and 'ink' actually worked. The American Civil War history is so interesting. I was extremely delighted to read about charlie and Jackie's visit to Frenchboro because even I learned from their visit. So, thank you Charlie and Jackie from Australia.
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