Hands-on Lesson Plans, Activities, Assignments, and Reconstruction Protocols

• Introductions to Secrets of Craft and Nature
  • Scavenger Hunt: Get to Know Secrets of Craft and Nature - a great way to get started! Get to know the digital critical edition of Ms. Fr. 640 and the manuscript itself by completing a scavenger hunt of its contents.
  • Secrets of Craft and Nature Reconnaissance (Directed Scavenger Hunt) - another way to get started in familiarizing yourself with the digital critical edition.
• Reconstruction of a 16th-century Burn Salve Recipe - teaching tools and resources for reconstructing a historical recipe (2021-07-08)
• Breadmolding Reconstruction - hands-on lesson plan and assignment for reconstructing a casting technique that uses bread as the mold (2021-09-21)
• Stucco for Molding: A Reconstruction - hands-on lesson plan and assignment for creating molded stucco object from rye flour or chalk (2021-09-24)
• Making Paints from Pigments and Painting Them Out - hands-on lesson plan and assignment for making paints by combining historical pigments and binding media (2021-09-22)
• “Growing” Verdigris Pigment Reconstruction - hands-on lesson plan and assignment for producing verdigris, a blue-green pigment, using historical techniques. See also Marie-France Lemay’s “Verdigris” in Traveling Scriptorium: A Teaching Kit by the Yale University Library (2021-09-22)
• Making Lake Pigments from Natural Colorants:
  • Making Lake Pigment from Cochineal - hands-on lesson plan and assignment for transforming natural colorants in cochineal insects into a pigment (2021-09-27)
  • Making Lake Pigment from Madder - hands-on lesson plan and assignment for transforming natural colorants in madder roots into a pigment (2022-01-29)
  • Making Pigment from Madder: a Trio of Recipes - helpful step-by-step fieldnotes (2022-07-19) (WIP)
• Dyeing with Cochineal - hands-on lesson plan and assignment for dyeing textiles with cochineal insects (2023-04-03)
  • See also, Lesson Plans, Activities, and Resources: Dyeing with Natural Colorants - resources for dyeing textiles with natural colorants (including cochineal, madder, weld, and redwoods) following historical dye recipes (2022-06-17)
• Preparing and Painting with Azurite - resources for grinding, levigating, and painting the blue copper pigment, azurite.