Hello? Hello!

The Victorian era was a time of rapid social change, not least due to the Industrial Revolution which carried with it much scientific innovation and inventions.

One of the inventors from this period is Alexander Graham Bell, who is most famous for his invention of the modern telephone.

Surprisingly, I cannot not find a suitably interesting documentary about Bell, but we did manage to hear a recording of his voice when it was transmitted successfully over the first telephone.

Tiger then read another biography of Bell's and I had him write a short narration of what he has read, which he completed dutifully (meaning: he was less than keen at the idea but did it anyway).  On hindsight, I am not sure that making Tiger write a report proves anything other than that the action created a paper trail of what we did; I am not even sure that it shows evidence of real learning!   I suppose it provided me with some comfort to know that Tiger can write a short report when it is required of him.

We then moved quickly onto the more fun, hands-on part of making paper-cup phones by joining two cups with a piece of string.  Tiger was amused at the result when we were able to communicate to each other from different rooms through our homemade "cup-phones", and he soon forgot the pain of having been made to write a report to allay his mother's momentary, unfounded anxiety with regards to his writing ability.

We are also very lucky in our learning environment to be able to attend a sound workshop with fellow homeschoolers,

where we were treated not only to a wide variety of learning opportunities, from the history of broadcasting to the basics of how sound translates to hearing,

the workshop leader was also very engaging with the children and she was able to demonstrate the basic principles of sound variations using equipment that would be slightly challenging to find at home, such as the one below which demonstrates the relationship between the frequency of sound and vibration:

What the children enjoyed most was being able to get their hands on the numerous exploratory equipment that helped them discover the principles of sound in action.

Even though many of the basic principles of sound can be demonstrated successfully at home with simpler homemade apparatus, I still appreciate opportunities like this where Tiger is exposed to more sophisticated equipment.


This post is linked up to:

1. Hip Homeschool Hop - 3/24/15
2. Finishing Strong #48
3. History and Geography Meme: What You Have Been Doing This March
4. Collage Friday: Some Homeschool Weeks (Years?) Are Just Like That
5. Weekly Wrap-Up: The one with all the review
6. My Week in Review #30
7. Science Sunday: Experimenting with Model Rockets, part 3

A History of Paper Making and Printing

Inspired by Claire's very fine study of Gutenberg and His Printing Press, we followed suit to find out more for ourselves about this remarkable invention that improved literacy in the Western world.

We started by reading Gutenberg's story from the following books:

Some books only have a paragraph or so about the inventor and his invention.  We found the following to be particularly informative:

The two videos recommended in Claire's post are also very useful.  The first gives a short overview of Gutenberg and his printing press:

We particularly enjoyed watching Stephen Fry's investigation into the history of Gutenberg's motivation to invent the printing press:

Being part of a huge homeschooling community has its advantages.  There's always someone else who's interested in a similar topic at the same time as we are.  When an opportunity to participate in a 'history of printing and paper making' workshop at the world's oldest mechanised paper mill came up, we were only too happy to go along!

We were greeted with a short yet detailed presentation of the history of paper making and printing in Britain, and of the mill.

We then went on a guided tour of the mill.  The first machine we saw was the a paper making machine that is still actively in use to make paper.

This machine uses all kinds of recycled paper and even elephant poo as source materials!  The machine was using elephant poo on the day of our visit, but it was certainly busily working away.

We also saw the Fourdrinier paper making machine, which was installed at the mill in 1902.  It's a huge machine.  We were told that when any of the drums needed cleaning, a worker would have to "dive" into the hole (see photo below) to get inside each drum.  Either people were much smaller back then, or they must've used children (child labour was very common in Victorian Britain) because the hole is very small.

The Fourdrinier machine wasn't working when we visited but it is still in working condition, as shown below:

The foundations of the paper mill date back to the Anglo-Saxon period, and a previous mill in the same location has been recorded in the Doomsday Book.  We were able to see the Anglo-Saxon remains of the mill, which is the water wheel part that used to provide power to the mill before steam power was discovered.

Another part of the mill is dedicated to paper recycling, which feeds the pulp as source material for paper making.

The pulper wasn't working when we visited but, like the Fourdrinier machine, the Watford Pulper is still being used on other days.

We were also given detailed explanation of original printing presses that were installed at the beginning of the 1900s,

as well as the development of different type cases.

After the guided tour, we were given a detailed demonstration and talk on more about history of printing, engraving, paper making by a man who had worked in the mill since 1966, so he knew everything about every machine that was used in the mill and every step that took place in the printing process there.  We learnt much from his intimate knowledge of the mill and its processes.

Another part of the workshop has to do with paper making.  Tiger has made his own paper before, but that hasn't stopped him from enjoying the process again, after a demonstration by the workshop leader.

Tiger and I knew that the Chinese had invented paper making and printing a thousdand years before these methods reached Europe, so it was interesting for us to see this fact acknowledged in the exhibition gallery.

It was fascinating to read that T'sai Lun, who invented papermaking in 105 A.D., was inspired by how wasps make their nests, so we looked up the history of how papermaking was invented in ancient China:

Along with papermaking, printing technique was also invented ancient China, the basic method being individually engraved characters lined up to be printed on papers.  The same principle is used by the Western letter printing method.

This post is linked up to:

1. Science Sunday: How to Make a Candy Spine
2. Hip Homeschool Hop - 7/15/14
3. History and Geography Meme #126
4. Weekly Wrap-up: the one where we talk curriculum and the first day of school 
5. The Homeschool Mother's Journal (7/19/14)