Once a Chinese emperor in the tang dynasty dreamed about a palace that was surrounded by a beautiful dancing fairies in colorful flowing dresses. when the Emperor woke up he wanted to see it again So a dance was choreographed where the dancers had a very long sleeves. Later they put them on sticks as ribbons.
Sometimes they choreographed dances out of gratitude. Once a man tried to kill the emperor with a sword but a courtesan stopped him with his long sleeve. The emperor was very grateful so he commanded that a dance be choreographed about the incident. The Dancers used short ribbons that would look like a long sleeve.
Chinese ribbons have been used since 8th century,when the dance was reserved for the royal court. Only later was it performed and enjoyed by everyone
Traditionally the ribbons were made of silk. Some ribbons are 12 feet long, others can be as short as 5 feet, The ones we make here at Pioneer Pastimes are 9ft long and made of satin.
My six year old son loves to make paper airplanes, he will come into the home office early every morning and one of the first things he will say is “Dad, help me make a paper airplane”. He has been into this for literally years and it is still one of his favorite activities. We have tried all kinds of airplanes and will write articles about several of the neatest kinds we have built.
For this article we are going to talk about some really fun planes that look really realistic and are a ton of fun to fly.
Finding 3D Model airplane plans
the first step is to get the plans. There are several ways to do this, some free, others that cost a little.
My favorite is a site called Fly’N Things they have a bunch of WWII planes that look very realistic and fly very well tethered (more about latter) or just thrown.
Another source that my son has built a ton of, fun, excellent flying paper planes from, is the book Aviation Legends Paper Airplane Book
by Ken Blackburn and Jeff Lammers. Most of these are a little bit simpler to build than the Fly’N Things plans so you will spend less time helping the younger kids with their projects. There are two ready to make copies of each plane and this book also gives an excellent short history of aviation and also one or two pages of information on each of the planes.
Another site is Fiddlers Green they have a ton of very realistic paper models that are a lot of fun to build but a little on the complicated side for young children. This is a great site for any airplane buff, for each of the plans they sale they also give a very complete history of that airplane and a lot of good pictures. The one feature I always look for is the picture of the plane wrecked at the bottom of the page.Most of their plans are under $5 and you can just download and print on your printer. I just went over to their site and they have 3 free models to download for just signing up.
I’m sure that a little searching could bring up some other great sources so if you have a favorite book or website I would love to hear from you, please leave a comment.
Next post we will walk step by step through building one with plenty of tips and tricks for the first time builder.
Saint Valentine’s Day started in ancient Rome during the reign of Emperor Claudius II. The Emperor wanted soldiers but the men in his kingdom wouldn’t enlist. The emperor gave the matter some thought and came to the conclusion that they didn’t want to leave their families so the emperor decreed that no one could get married. Many people thought that was a bad law, one of them was a priest named Valentine. Valentine ignored the law and went on marrying people in secret. Eventually Valentine was discovered and was sentenced to death. Until the day appointed for his execution he was kept in a jail cell. While there he made friends with the jailor’s daughter. On the day of his execution Valentine left a note for the jailor’s daughter signed “From Your Valentine”. The very first valentine! Now it is a tradition to send valentines on February 14th, the day of priest Valentines execution.
The first commercial valentines made in the USA were by Miss Esther Howland who made a few samples and gave them to her brother who was a salesman. She was hoping he might sale up to $200 worth but he came back with more than $5000 in advance sales. The business was soon selling $100,000 a year. The valentines made by her company are still identifiable by the quality of workmanship and are sought after by collectors.
Pioneer Pastimes sells a really cute wooden heart teether/rattle that would be a perfect gift for your babies first Valentine.
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