We have been doing some fascinating activities for our Medieval History unit, (Viking Runes, Medieval Illuminations, and our own homemade Medieval Subtleties) but this craft or "craftivity" turned out the most beautiful of all. We created our own stained glass windows! This is an easy activity, especially if you purchase our premade Medieval Window packet which includes 4 possible designs for your students to choose from to make their window. You will also need a transparency sheet (or some recycled flat plastic), a sharpie, food coloring and glue. And some Q-tips. Because we always fall back on Q-tips as an easy go-to paintbrush for these kinds of activities. After drawing the designs on the transparencies with black sharpies, we cut out our window shapes. And we began to fill in the window shapes with our glue paint. To make it easier, we cut out our paper design and taped it, along with the transparency to the table. It kept our image stable while the kids filled in the colors. After the colored glue had dried, we cut out our window edging and glued it over the glass. An optional idea is to go over the top of the sharpie with black puffy paint. This raised black edging makes the stained glass really pop. It feels just like the leaded glass stained windows you might see in an old church or heraldic window. The finished product is tacked to the window so that the light can stream through, just like it streamed through Medieval stained glass windows, many years ago. A beautiful finished product! Check out our packet that includes everything you need to create this craft, here in our store. Reviews "My students were completely engaged and created a great deal of stained glass with this project. We researched how stained glass was made with Medieval techniques (the V&A Museum has a fantastic video!) and then we got to work, having unearthed a box of old transparencies, which I think really makes this project. We also were creating them for our Medieval Faire for our K-3rd graders and they found the stained glass captivating. I would have never guessed they would have looked so good! Excellent lesson!" --- Anne C. "Loved the informational text. It was so helpful. The activity wasn't as engaging as I'd hoped, but it was still worth the purchase." --- Get Schooled "We a learning about the role of churches during the Medieval time period so this is a great supplemental for us and a nice break from the heavy reading and material. The students enjoyed creating these." --- Pham-tastic Teaching "One of the better stained-glass projects I've seen. Worked greatly for my A&H class!" --- Eli Edwards "We used the patterns to make our own stained glass. We used sharpies instead of glue and they came out beautifully." --- Tippecanoe "I used this resource to supplement what we were learning in class. My students loved the activity?" --- Wendy E. "This was a fun activity to do in my summer program during medieval week." --- Karen C. "My students really enjoyed making them, and were so proud of the outcome. We did what someone else suggested and just used permanent sharpies. They look awesome!" --- Randy Bland "My students loved this activity! We completed it in the middle of our Middle Ages reading unit. To make them even more stained glass in appearance, they lightly used a cotton ball to spread vegetable oil on the back to make them translucent." --- Dayna K. Check out our packet that includes everything you need to create this craft, here in our store.