Written by Deepak Dennison
We all love animations, don't we? This activity can be used to introduce children to the world of animations and optical illusions. A thaumatrope is an optical toy that was popular in the 19th century. A disk with a picture on each side is attached to two pieces of string. When the strings are twirled quickly between the fingers, the two pictures appear to blend into one due to the persistence of vision. With nothing but paper and thread, one can create their own thaumatrope in myriad ways and sky is the only limit. Now let's get started!
Jump to Instructions
Time Needed:
30 mins
Materials Required:
White Paper
Cardboard (Optional, if thick paper is not available)
Thread
Punching Machine (Optional)
Concept(s) Taught:
Animation | Optical Illusion
Skill(s) Focussed:
Creativity
Aligned Profession(s):
Animator | Toy Maker | Physicist
Instruction Video:
Special Instructions for Teachers:
Encourage children to think out of the box:
While doing this activity, push the children to think of animation ideas apart from the ones that you show them. Nudge them to think that animation is all about giving life to something which might not ever exist in real life.
Go for quantity:
Encourage children to come up with at least three distinct thaumatropes of their own. If this activity is being done as a group, set a condition that thaumatropes made by each individual in the group should be completely different from each other.
Have fun making and share the works of your students with the hashtag #projectprayogshala to get featured!