Age appropriateness for various art supplies?

[root*children]

Hi,
What is the age appropriateness for modeling beeswax? Is 4-1/2 too young?
~Julie

[onthemove]

I think this is a great age to start, my daughter is starting to develope a great attention span to see things through to a finished project. I love the idea of modeling bees wax and she will probably have sooo much fun. thanks for a great idea for this weekend

[Rhonwyn]

Most Waldorf Kindergartens have 4 - 6 year olds and they all use beeswax so I would say 4.5 is an appropriate age. The Kindergartens at our school use only natural, yellow beeswax. The children don't get the other colors until the grade school but I am not sure why. If you heat the beeswax slightly with hot water, it will be easier for little fingers to manipulate. As they get older and their fingers become stronger, they don't need the beswax heated. Putting it under a lamp will work too. Have fun this weekend!

[root*children]

We found an unopened box of Stockmar modeling beeswax at the thrift quite a while ago. And I've been holding off on giving it to DS, for those reasons of being old enough. Good to know Kindergartens use it... we homeschool and don't have a waldorf within 7 hours of us! so I have no other way to know these things! Anyhow, I'll have to look around for natural undyed wax, I don't think I've noticed that in any catalogs before (i wasn't looking!) anyhow, I was asking this to find out if it would be a good thing to put in his easter basket. hmm..

[katmainomad]

On a tangent...is there anything special about modelling beeswax? I bought some local beeswax at the state fair last year and it is pretty hard for even me to model a small amount of after holding it in my arm pit for ever Is it because it isn't produced by modelling bees? ...or waldorf bees?

[Rhonwyn]

This is what I was told by my children's Kindergarten teacher. Waldorf uses beeswax because it softens when warmed by working it with your fingers but it doesn't take heat from the person working it. It also smells nice too! Clay on the other hand, is cold and removes heat from the body so they feel that it is not appropriate for young children. The older children at around 2nd grade start using clay.

The beeswax is much easier to use if you let it float in hot water or if you heat it under a little desk lamp. Once it is warmed up, it shapes nicely. In Kindergarten the teachers heat up the beeswax but in 1st grade they let the kids heat it up with friction and body heat.

[lazygirl]

I have used just regular beeswax with my class before, you can melt and stir in some lanolin and lavender oil and it won't get so hard and it will smell good too.
If colored is what you have that is fine.

[root*children]

well i did give it to him for easter. Having trouble softening it up, I'll try boiling water poured over it. How do you store it? I don'r think it'll fit back in the original box.

[zo's ma]

Originally Posted by dready*mama

well i did give it to him for easter. Having trouble softening it up, I'll try boiling water poured over it. How do you store it? I don'r think it'll fit back in the original box.

Hey mama!

you can heat it up a bit in the oven on a very low setting...then let the kids warm it in the'r hands. we store ours in a little basket.

[root*children]

paige! We just keep running into eachother today!
weelll... :LOL the boiling water idea was pretty much retarded! I made a huge mess and sacrificied quite a bit of wax. oh well, live and learn!

[JenniferC]

What we do here to warm it up, is to 1. hold it for quite a while, then 2, smooth it out into thinner pieces, and work it out from the top instead of trying to use a great big chunk of it at once as a larger piece, if that makes sense? A great big chunk definitely takes longer to warm up.

katmainomad - there is definitely a difference between the modelling beeswax and regular beeswax, regular beeswax needs to be melted and poured, it is very very hard, I think that the modelling beeswax has already been blended with something to increase its modability. From what I've read it has "aromatic beeswax content" so perhaps isn't 100% pure beeswax I would imagine . HTH!