Homemade Mountain Glitter Globes

We were learning about mountains last week, and the Bees understood how mountains were formed by using clay pieces. We simulated tectonic plates pushing into each other by using "clay continents", slowing pushing 2 continent clay pieces together so that the edges buckle and squish up into mountains. 

We bought a brand of clay that was exceedingly soft, so it was rather hard to create big strong mountains just by pushing 2 continent pieces together, so the Bees had to mould their mountains a fair bit thereafter. 

We then let the mountains dry before painting them. Through this process, we learned about the shapes and structure of young and old mountains. Big Bee created narrow, jagged mountains with rounded peaks, whereas Little Bee created rather undulating, broader mountains with sharp peaks! 

Big Bee's mountains on the left; Little Bee's mountains on the right

The painting allows us to talk about snow-capped mountains and how mountains changes colours with the seasons. We also learned about snow mountains (arctic mountains), stony mountains (grey slate and all) and green rolling hills and mountains (their favourite!). 

Big Bee's painted mountains

Little Bee's painted mountains

When the clay hardened, we decided to create homemade mountain glitter globes by sticking the mountains onto the caps of glass jars. 

We then filled the glass jars with water, and the Bees were excitedly sprinkling glitter in the shapes of sun, stars and moon into the glass jars to emulate the atmosphere around mountains and demonstrate how close mountains are to celestial beings. 

Big Bee's jar

Little Bee's jar. She also learned about sinking and floating concepts of lighter and heavier objects in the process.

However, this craft turned out to be a disaster because 1) our acrylic paint was not water-proof, despite what the package stated, and 2) our clay - although hardened - was disintegrating gradually in the glass jars, resulting in a murky glitter globe! I took the opportunity of a cloudy jar to explain the concept of snowstorms swirling around a mountain! 

Big Bee's mountain glitter globe!

Little Bee's mountain glitter globe!

The Bees, albeit disappointed, were laughing alongside me as we embarked on a couple of rescue missions to rectify our mountain glitter globes, to no avail. 

But the spirit of endeavour permeated our house that evening, as we gamely destroyed our crafts despite working on it over a few evenings. The Bees were great sports about this, and we used this opportunity to learn about the concept of impermanence, where we created an object of pride and beauty in one moment, and eradicating it with mirthfulness in another moment. I was glad they were laughing through this entire process :)

Big Bee wrote a rather hilarious account of our craft in her blog here. Enjoy reading!