Thaumatrope: a 19th Century Optical Toy

Use a light weight piece of paper....81/2"x 11"

Fold it vertically.

Fold the paper into thirds.

Then cut it along the folds.

Step 1:

Roll one piece into a paper stick and glue it so that it will stay rolled.

This is the reason for the light weight paper. Rolling card stock would be difficult.

Card stock could be used for the disks in the next step.

Step 2: Thaumatrope....Optical Toy

With the two remaining pieces of paper trace a circle and cut it out of both pieces.

Step 3:

Think of an image...pictures as well as words work.

Draw one part of the image on one circle.

Complete the image on the other circle.

To get them to line up draw them against a window so you can see both images.

Step 4:

When the images are complete, "Sandwich" them together with the paper stick in the middle.

Let it dry.

Then spin it in your fingers to see the animated image.

"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. Thaumatrope

Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaumatrope"