If you remember, my son and husband are working on a historical model about Vimy Ridge for a contest the local museum is having.  This is a pretty big endeavor but they are enjoying it immensely.

Vimy Ridge, for those of you who aren’t familiar with it, is a place where several battles took place in World War I.  it is considered to be the birthplace of my nation, Canada, simply because national pride began at Vimy.  There Canadian soldiers did what no other army had been able to do; they took the Ridge.  Not only that, but Canadian soldiers came up with many new ways to fight an enemy and many of those practices are still used by armies around the world.  A lot of pride is felt when you talk about Vimy Ridge, and it is wonderful to remember the veterans and all the soldiers that died in all the wars.

As I mentioned, I’m not a big fan of war.  I used to be anti-war, no ends justifies the means, but after gaining a very close friend who volunteered in the US Marines during Vietnam (yes he was Canadian), and being bombarded by family that are interested in war history, I have changed my opinion.  Sometimes, no, the end does not justify the means but sometimes it does.  World War I was one of those times. 

So now that I gave you a brief history lesson, sorry about that, let’s get back to model making, or at least parts of it. 

What you will need is a sheet of foam insulation, the pink kind only.  They usually come in big strips so you will need to have something to cut it down.

Cut the insulation to the dimensions that you want it.  Vimy Ridge is a small model since we are going by the dimensions given to us by the museum.  So my husband cut it 16 inches by 22 inches.  He then cut 3 other squares, each one getting smaller to form the hill.

At that point, he cut the hill out of the foam using a sharp knife and then glued them together using the heavy duty foam insulation glue that comes in a container for a caulking gun.  After it dried, my son cut out the trenches, and explosion craters. 

This is all you need to do with the foam, cut it with an exacto blade or some other type of knife and then lift it out with a flat head screwdriver or anything that can be used as a lifter.  You can shape the foam into just about anything and you can even use it to make buildings.

On our model, my son hit the hills with a meat mallet to make it look like churned mud, and then he applied plaster of paris to blend in each layer so it looked like a muddy hill.  After that, it was simple enough to paint it with primer and it is now ready for the next stage. 

So when you make a model, which I’m sure you will have to make at least once with your school age child, all you need for right now is

• Foam Insulation (pink)
• carpet knife or exacto blade
• heavy duty glue
• Plaster of Paris
• Primer

I will have more for you later.

Sirena

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When my oldest became focused on Egypt, he couldn’t believe how different the world had been.  The non-fiction facts that we read about seemed like fantastical worlds where people worshiped strange gods and spent their lives building huge monuments under the cruel and demanding sun.  The whole topic was something that he couldn’t get bored of and even to this day (2 years after the fact), he still enjoys learning about Egypt and has plans to become an Archaeologist. 

After Egypt came a whole slew of other history subjects and currently we are working on a project surrounding Canada in World War 1.  Actually, it is Vimy Ridge to be specific and he is hearing things like, “The birthplace of our nation,” and “Canadians invented many practices in combating enemies that are still used today.”  Personally, I was hesitant to work on Vimy Ridge since it is focused on war but when the local museum announced that they were having a model competition for Canadian history, I relented and my son and his dad are making a model of Vimy Ridge.

When you teach your own local and national history, it not only awakens you child to the worlds I already mentioned but it also helps foster an understanding of the community and nation that they come from and helps them develop a sense of national pride.  Being proud of who you are and where you come from is important for everyone and children are no different. 

The only thing that you should consider is whether or not the subject is age appropriate.  If it isn’t or you do not feel that you have any way to make it age appropriate, then you should find a different history topic to choose from.  If you are interested in pursuing history subjects with your child, you should:

• Follow the direction of your child.  He or she will probably choose where they want to learn.  My son started with volcanoes and learned about Pompai and Mount Vesuvius.  That went to Roman Culture, which lead him to Egyptian, Egyptian went to Greek and then Greek somehow shifted to Mayan.  Right now, however; the main focus is Mayan and Egyptian.
• Buy some good history books for kids.  The Usborne library offers many wonderful books and several of their series correlates the pages in the books to child appropriate websites that cover parts of the subject that the book may or may not cover.
• Find some appropriate coloring pages.  I know we found some excellent ones on Roman Legionnaires when we were looking at the Roman Empire and there are tons floating around about everything from daily life to campaigns the empire (or time period) experienced.
• Visit museums.  Many parent’s overlook museums since they believe that a child will have absolutely no interest in them.  My kids have been going to museum’s since they were infants and absolutely love them.  There are so many strange things to look at and my son was overjoyed when we went to the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) to see a real mummy. 
• Last but certainly not least: Don’t force it.  If your child isn’t interested in history, don’t force him or her to be.  Instead, just wait it out or pick a historical fiction to read to him or her.  Chances are the fiction will peek his or her interest and you can branch off to the non-fiction again.

As my son and husband work on the model, I will post them up and a little how-to’s on model making made easy.  For now, simply enjoy delving into worlds that you can hardly believe existed.

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