School Crafts from Civil War Days

We haven't done as many crafts/activities this year related to our Tapestry reading. The book Civil War Day had the following recipes/crafts that I finally decided to do.  Shortning bread originated from Scottish immigrants as shortbread. Over the years, the Southern name changed the name to shortning bread or shortin' bread. I made it into a star shape because that is a traditional Scottish symbol for good luck.
It was really good, but I wished I had some strawberries so I could have had strawberry shortcake. Even Cole had some...reminds me of the song "Shortnin' Bread"...this cute little cartoon has it at the end.

We also made hardtack, a hard biscuit that was a common food for soldiers. It was pretty tasteless and hard so we ate it with honey. Levi said it was too hard to eat. It was funny because they kept complaining that they didn't like it, but continued to eat it.


We read about a paper craft called scherenschnitte which means scissor cuts. I found this site that had some easy templates for kids...although mine kept complaining. She also had some Star Wars templates that I cut out.