Paul Revere Lanterns

I had hoped to have pictures of 5 cute little colonial era looking lanterns to share with you all today, but we ran into some difficulties in the making of said lanterns!

You will recall that famous phrase from Longfellow's poem: "one if by land, two if by sea...." Well, we set out to make Paul Revere type lanterns yesterday afternoon. First we cut appropriate lengths of thin metal sheeting off the big roll (called "flashing" and found in the roofing department of Lowe's).
Then each of the children drew a picture on paper and taped this to their metal flashing piece. We gave each of them hammers (Little Man was the only one who needed help!) and they began to pound little holes along the edges of their picture, for the light from the lantern to shine through. This took quite a while.

Once this was accomplished, we cut small slits along the bottom edge (similar to the cuts you make on the inside of fabric when sewing corners) and rounded the flashing so that the bottom would fit inside a jar lid. We hot glued the bottom of the flashing to the inside of the jar lid. What we didn't plan ahead of time was how to adhere the two edges together all the way up the side of the lantern. Hot glue didn't work. Currently they are all being held together with rubberbands while we figure out what to try next. We're thinking super glue.

In the meantime, all the jar lids came unglued from the lantern bodies, so we peeled off the dried glue and will try super glue along the bottom also.

Note to other homeschoolers: if you try this yourselves be sure to use WIDE MOUTH jar lids!! It gives you much more room to work.

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So, the children are disappointed that the lanterns aren't finished in time to light them and act out that whole scene from history, but hopefully they will be finished soon. After we do the gluing, we will also attach wire handles along the top.

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Yesterday was the anniversary of Paul Revere's famous ride, and today was the anniversary of Lexington and Concord, the "shot heard 'round the world". If you are an American, be thankful for the freedoms you enjoy, and for the system of government that allows for representation and for a peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next. For all that is wrong with our government, there are lots of things that our founding fathers got right!