Have you ever wondered what life would be like without books? Before Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, books were rare. Monks spent years painstakingly copying a book by hand; therefore, the wealthy were the only people that could afford to own one. Gutenberg spent many years of his life trying to come up with a way to print books easily and quickly. His invention changed the world.
In 1454, Gutenberg printed about 150 to180 Bibles. Of those originally printed, only about 49 remain today. We learned that inventing a printing press would have required diligence and patience as Gutenberg spent many years trying to hammer out the movable type, to find the right paper to use, and to create the perfect ink. I found a project that helped us to understand the difficulty of this process and gave us a greater appreciation for Johannes Gutenberg and his wonderful invention.
First, I collected about 20 to 25 pennies and cut a piece of heavy cardboard (5X5) from an old box. I then asked Chloe to arrange the pennies in a simple design. She chose to arrange them in her first initial, "C".
In 1454, Gutenberg printed about 150 to180 Bibles. Of those originally printed, only about 49 remain today. We learned that inventing a printing press would have required diligence and patience as Gutenberg spent many years trying to hammer out the movable type, to find the right paper to use, and to create the perfect ink. I found a project that helped us to understand the difficulty of this process and gave us a greater appreciation for Johannes Gutenberg and his wonderful invention.
First, I collected about 20 to 25 pennies and cut a piece of heavy cardboard (5X5) from an old box. I then asked Chloe to arrange the pennies in a simple design. She chose to arrange them in her first initial, "C".
After she glued the pennies to the cardboard with tacky glue, she rubbed the pennies all over with colored sidewalk chalk.
Then, she carefully laid a piece of paper on top of her "printable type", and holding the paper steady with one hand, she pressed down hard with a rolling pin rolling over all the pennies to create a printed design on the paper.
The results were not impressive. We talked about how difficult it must have been for Gutenberg as he tried different ways to achieve the results he wanted from his printing press. We talked about how maybe painting the pennies might have yielded a better result.
We did not have time to try any other ways of printing, but we learned a lot from this simple activity. And of course, we read a book about Gutenberg --my very favorite-- Who in the World was the Secretive Printer: The Story of Johannes Gutenberg by Robert Beckham, who also happens to be my dad! We are very proud of Poppa and his book about the secretive printer and are thankful to Gutenberg for inventing the printing press!
We had a lot of fun Googling Gutenberg Bibles and finding out where we might see one today, and finding out what they looked like with their colorful ink and designs. I finished the lesson by having Chloe write what she found to be most fascinating about Gutenberg. You can find that free printable notebooking page here.
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