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Thank you for joining us this Tuesday for our second Homeschool History Buffs link up.  If you would like to share a history project that you have done please use McLinky to link directly to your blog post, and also leave a link back to here so that we can encourage others to join us.  Feel free to grab the button to help spread the word.   Some projects will end up on the Homeschool Gadget Toolbar chronologically under history projects.

For the colonial time period, we decided to try our hand at making hand dipped beeswax candles.  We used the materials that were in our Early American History Discovery Kit from Hands and Hearts.

I had always hesitated with this colonial craft because I thought it was going to be hard and I thought it would take too long.  I was wrong!  With adult supervision this craft was wonderful and the children could have actually stuck with it longer then we had supplies for.

Materials:

• Beeswax pellets
• 2 soup or bean cans
• shallow pan to boil water
• ice
• water
• bowl to set can in
• wick for candle cut to approx nine inches long
• short dowel or stick

Directions:

1. Place several inches of water in pan and begin heating in pan.
2. Pour 4 heaping Tbsp beeswax pellets into tin soup can.
3. Fill the soup can, with beeswax, full of water and set in pan of water.
4. While the beeswax melts, fill second soup can with cold water and ice.
5. Place the can with icy water into the bowl and fill the bowl with ice.
6. While you are waiting for pellets to melt, tie one end of the wick around the dowel or stick.
7. After the pellets have melted, dip the wick into the water/wax can.  Note:  the wax melts and floats to the top, as you pull the wick back up through the water, the wax sticks to it.
8. Next, you dip the wick into the can of icy water.
9. You can then straighten the wick.  The wax should not be too hot to touch it.
10. Repeat this step over and over again until your candle is the desired circumference.
11. Trim your wick, leaving about 3/4″.
12. Let your candle cure for 24 hours before you light it.  Enjoy!

The above picture shows two heated cans of beeswax and one shared can of icy water, because we had lots of children lined up to do this craft.  The picture is after (about) the seventh dip.  Below you can see the wick getting thicker.

And, here are the finished candles!