"Put it in Quotes"

Did you know quotation marks…or really the ancient relative of quotation marks, the diple (>), found its true calling via Christian texts? In second century Egypt the diple was created by Aristarchus, a librarian at the Library of Alexandria, for cataloging. It wasn't until the advent of Christianity that the leaders of the young Church adopted the diple to serve as an indicator of specific text, i.e. quotes or sacred scripture. 

The quotation marks did not take their current form (as inverted commas) until 1525 when Bishop John Fisher used double inverted commas to identify quotes made by his opponent, Martin Luther.

If you want a really, really ridiculously in-depth (and fascinating) history of quotation marks, check out Slate.com's great article.

 Photo from Slate.com's article, "The Long and Fascinating History of Quotation Marks.   





Ask your kids if they can think of someone's memorable saying. It can be a famous person or their aunt! If they can think of something (and it's appropriate), write it down for them. If they have trouble, help them look online for a nice quote…or help them create one of their own. You then turn that quote into an art project! Use whatever artistic medium in which your kids are interested and/or you have in the house to recreate this quote in a unique way. Use chalk, fabric, paint, paper scraps, whatever you need to get the message across. When it's done, hang it up somewhere in the house or yard so your kids can see their inspiring quote whenever they want!
