Craftory: Quill Pen

[Music] welcome to craftery by prageru kids crafts history and your questions i'm jill and today we're making a classic quill pen from a feather to learn about and honor how america's declaration of independence and our constitution were written oh we've got a question are the declaration of independence and the constitution the same thing this might be one of the most important questions we've ever had the declaration of independence and the constitution are two different documents that are very important to america one of them created the united states and the other one made all the rules now while you think about which one might be which here's what you'll need for our craft large real feathers as tall as you can get them these are turkey feathers and they're about 12 inches tall i found them online ink in a bottle i found this online too a marker tweezers some paper and a pair of scissors promise me you'll ask for a grown-up's help when it comes time for the scissors deal deal before we get started making our old-fashioned quill pen a fun fact the word pen actually comes from the latin word penna which means feather and if you don't yet know a quill is a main wing or tail feather of a bird many of the world's most important historical documents were written with quill pens made from the feathers of birds ready for the first step take a feather and trim a bit of the sides near where you'll be holding it to right to give yourself a better grip on your future pen see so now look at the feather and hold it so that it's curving and pointing downward just like this next make a dot with your marker to mark the spot where the point of the pen will be so did you think about how the declaration of independence and the constitution are different from each other you want me to tell you okay here we go the declaration of independence can be thought of as our nation's birth certificate the day the united states was born in 1776 it announced to the world that the 13 colonies would no longer be ruled under great britain and that god our creator made all men equal and worthy of freedom founding father and america's third president thomas jefferson wrote the first draft of the declaration with a quill pen congress debated and changed it a bit and then voted for it 56 people signed it congress adopted the declaration of independence on july 4th 1776. now as for the constitution well it's america's rule book just like every sport has written rules so does our american government the constitution describes our three branches of government executive legislative and judicial the constitution protects our rights by limiting the power of government over the people america's fourth president james madison is often called the father of the constitution because he played an important role in writing it with a quill pen between may and september 1787 55 men attended the constitutional convention to discuss and approve america's soon-to-be rules it was signed by 39 people and adopted on september 17 1787. you got all that good let's finish making our quill pen here okay so remember that dot we made now it's time to ask a grown-up for help because what they're going to do is take the scissors and carefully cut the end of the quill at a slant less than 45 degrees like this i suddenly feel like thomas jefferson next take the tweezers and we're going to clean out the inside of this feather because this is where the ink goes super easy super fun and this is how thomas jefferson and james madison wrote our founding documents you want to try riding with it take your ink do we think it's going to work take your ink be very careful i'm going to write we the people [Music] it works we the people yes it's actually a little bit difficult to write like this but this is how america's most important documents were created did you know there were only six people who signed both the declaration of independence and the constitution benjamin franklin was one of them now what are some things that our declaration of independence and constitution have in common well they're both printed on parchment made of animal skins both were signed in philadelphia pennsylvania in the building that is now called independence hall and both are considered some of the most important documents about freedom ever written in all of history [Music] this is so easy and to think that america's founding fathers created our country using quail pens we hope you had fun if you've got ideas or questions for our next craftery send them our way keep crafting keep learning and keep celebrating land of the free and home of the break who wants to make more pins bye guys [Music] thank you for watching this video to keep prageru videos free please consider making a tax deductible donation