T For Thaumatrope – Get Crafty #BlogchatterA2Z

I used to make thaumatropes when in school and I’m sure you did too. Didn’t know then that it had such a fancy name. It used to come and go as a trend. It was a bird in a cage design that we made.

A thaumatrope is an optical toy that was very popular during the 19th century. They provide an illusion of motion. A disc with a picture on each side is tied to two strings. When the strings are twirled, the two pictures seem to blend into one due to persistence of vision. As other illusions, this one is also very interesting to the naked eye.
Instead of strings we used a wooden skewer to make twirling easy for little hands. Eira didn’t want to make the same old bird with cage or tree branch with leaves. She decided to make a puppy in a gift box.

Supplies
A4 Paper/chart paper
Wooden skewer/straw/any stick
Crayons
Pencil and eraser
Scissors
Glue
Tape

Let’s get started
1. Make two circles on the paper and cut them out.
2. Decide which two pictures you are going to draw that will blend into one. Draw the pictures and color them. Eira has drawn a puppy(half to show that it is inside the box) and on the other circle an open box with a ribbon on it.
3. Secure the stick with tape onto the back of one circle and then stick both the circles back to back onto each other. Make sure the pictures are on the outside.
4. Hold the stick between your palms and twirl it.

Your thaumatrope is ready! You can see that the puppy appears to be inside the gift box.

We have made a quick video while Eira was working on this activity.

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A post shared by ѕєєmα вαrdєѕkαr (@myworld.with.eira)

Hope you enjoy it!

This post is a part of Blogchatter‘s challenge #BlogchatterA2Z.