After the success of the Queen Anne's Lace experiment, I thought I'd involve Josie in making a candle using ice cubes. I did this a lifetime ago when I was the Arts and Crats teacher (as well as English) at Independent Day School in Tampa. Of course, those kids were older than six . . .
I rounded up my supplies--some milk cartons I'd saved, paraffin wax, old crayons, and some recycled cans to melt the wax in.Ah. Josie wanted the cartons and the cans to make houses for her Castle People. So, I showed her a video of a grandmotherly soul making ice cube candles and told her how pretty they would look when the interior candle melted down and the whole thing lit up like a lantern.
Somewhat reluctantly she agreed to relinquish her Castle People's housing and choose colors for the candles. Rainbow was her first choice but as we had only three cans, she could have only three colors. So, green for Mama, blue for Daddy, and pink for Herself--everybody's favorite colors.
Obviously, she had to stay away from the melting wax. And by the time I was packing ice cubes around the candles, she had pretty much lost interest in the whole endeavor and was making a house for the CP--a cylinder of paper taped together.
She observed the pouring of the melted colored wax and agreed to my topping off the pink and the blue candles with green. . .
When the wax had hardened, I poured off the water and tried to get her to help tear the milk carton away."No! I don't want sticky wax on my hands."Okay.
She was pleased with the outcome. "The pink one is like watermelon!"
Last, I cut off the excess inner candle and lit it.
"That doesn't look like a lantern," she said. I explained through clenched teeth that it would take some time--days even--for the candle to burn down that far.
"I'm sorry this wasn't more interesting to you," I said."Meema, sometimes things you think are fun aren't fun for me," she explained kindly. "And Mama and Daddy will like the candles.
Okay, fair enough. Coulda been worse, I guess.
