Phoenician Glass Craft
As part of our history studies, we have been studying about the ancient Phoenician way of life, including their beautiful glass making. (For more ideas on studying the ancient Phoenicians with kids, read about our Lebanon unit study).
We read about how as they made their highly prized glass objects, they would often incorporate colored threads and jewels. So as a fun craft, we made our own “glass,” decorated with faux jewels. It was easy and fun, and they were pleased with how they turned out! It’s also a great activity for building those fine motor skills.
For the glass, we used contact paper. For the jewels, we used bits of faux jewels we had left over from a long ago craft. This would also work well with sparkly stickers, especially those ones designed to look like jewels.
This may seem like a craft that boys wouldn’t be interested in, but mine loved it. My three year old kept saying how “boo-tiful” his creation was (and it was!), and my 6 year old kept trying to identify which “gems” we were actually working with. (“This one is iron. And here’s quartz. Do we have any rubies?” Um, no. We don’t have any rubies in the craft closet).
You Will Need:
Contact paper
Fake jewels
For each child, cut out a rectangle of contact paper, twice the size of what you would like the end product to be. Remove only half of the backing and let the child make his creation on the exposed contact paper. Make sure they do not put anything too close to the edge, as you will need room for the edges to seal together. Once they have finished, remove the remaining backing and very carefully fold this half over their art and press down to seal it in place. Makes a great a sun catcher!
