Thaumatropes

A thaumatrope is an optical toy that was popular in the 19th century. A disk with a picture on each side is     attached to a piece of string. When the string is twirled backwards and forwards quickly between the                   fingers the two pictures appear to blend into one due to the persistence of vision.

                                                         It is easy to make such a toy cut a piece of paper

                                                approx. 14cm x 7cm and fold in half along the (7cm x 7cm)

Draw a picture in one of the sides for example, a cage and in the other side a bird - but this should be drawn upside down.

         Fold the paper in half with the drawings on the outside. Make a small hole in the centre of the paper for a piece of string to go through and this should be about 10cm longer than each side of the folded square paper. Sellotape the string to the paper and then glue ALL of the paper and fold to make a square.

               Then twist the string backwards and forwards to see one image inside the other

STRING

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