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Pencil rubbings allow you to gather and recover lost information.
They can be
used on a pad of paper to recover a phone number that was lost or on a
weathered gravestone on which the text is no longer legible. Rubbings are also
great activities for kids. They can help kids to visualize the past and bring to light
details that are easily missed. Genealogists often make rubbings of gravestones
to make portable records of births and deaths.
Coin rubbing activity

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To make a rubbing of a coin, have students place the coin under a piece of white
paper. Thinner paper like computer paper works best. Take a sharpened Crayola®
Colored Pencil and gently rub the colored tip over the coin until the coin design
appears. Tip: Younger students may want to use the same color for each coin.
Coin rubbing is such a quick and easy art activity for kids, you can set it up in
minutes and everything that you need, you will have at home – better still it is
not messy so it’s easy to clear up afterwards! Plus you can make a really
colourful piece of artwork to put on your wall.
Step 1
Select an object with texture on the surface. A gravestone is excellent because
the names and dates are engraved into the stone. A pad of paper will have an
indent of whatever was written on the page above it. An embossed image will
also work. Embossing is the opposite of engraving, with information or the image
raised from the surface instead of sunken in. Flat objects (such as typed words)
will not produce a rubbing.
Step 2
Place a blank piece of paper (white is typically best) over the image to be
transferred. You can use masking tape to hold the paper in place without
damaging the object.
Step 3
Hold a pencil at about a 20-degree angle or less, so that the exposed lead (not
just the tip) is against the paper. Rub vigorously.
Step 4
Focus on dark lines as the image appears, to help the clarity of the image. The
rubbing will be complete when you are satisfied with the darkness and shading of
the image.
In fact this would make a great travel activity as it uses materials that are easy
to carry around.
Just one thing to remember, since coin rubbing uses small items, it only
suitable for children over the age of three who are past the stage of putting
things in their mouths.
You will need:-
 Paper – the paper should not be too thick otherwise the coin rubbing
won’t work very well. In fact the best paper I have found for this is the cheap
standard copy paper that you buy for a printer in packs of 500 sheets. So
basically you don’t want to use that expensive art paper.
 Pencils – now put away those lovely top quality watercolour pencils that
you bought to use with your adult colouring books! They will work of course,
but actually are not the best for this. The best ones I have found are harder
(verithin if you want to get technical) pencils, or even the cheap sets of pencils
that are marketed to kids. Ordinary lead pencils are also really good for this.
 Crayons – if you have kids who don’t quite have the fine motor skill for
pencils, crayons are a good way of starting them off with this craft.
 Some Coins - The best ones to use are those with big bold designs
rather than a lot of fine details. I’ll talk some more about the best ones to use
later.
That’s it, you are good to go!
How to do a Coin Rubbing
Get your sheet of paper and put the coin on top, hold the two steady and start
rubbing the crayon or pencil over the coin.
It works best if you start very gently and go over the coin several times. Just
carry on until you have a really good image of the coin’s design. This will help
teach your children a little bit of patience and how to use a pencil without
pressing too hard.
Coin Rubbing with Crayons
If your kids prefer to use crayons you can start them off with them. They can
either use the point, or for some big, quick instant gratification, take the paper
off the crayon and use it sideways.
You will get some nice colourful images but you will find that the detail is not
reproduced as well.
Coin Rubbing With Pencils
You will get much better images using pencils. The best ones from my
collection of colouring pencils that I found are actually a set of cheap double
ended pencils made by Helix aimed at kids ! They are blendable ones but
not water soluable.
Which are the Best Coins to Use for Coin
Rubbing?
The great thing about this is that you can use whatever coins you have in your
purse! I do have some suggestions for what works best though.
I’m going to get a bit nerdy here. Sorry – you can skip this bit if you want. Here
in the UK we have a tendency to change our coinage on a regular basis to
make it cheaper and to bring out special edition coins to commemorate
various occasions.

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Pencil rubbings allow you to gather and recover lost information.

Coin rubbing activity

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