Paper

Since Spring Break, we have started learning about Paper. First, we made predictions on how we thought paper was made. A lot of us guessed that paper comes from trees! When asked “From which part of the tree?”, many of us guessed the bark or leaves. Some of us even mentioned using machines to make paper.

 

 ("I think it was made out of bark")

 

After we made our predictions, we watched this short video that explains how paper is made. 

 

Here are the steps that we came up with:

1)  A tractor cuts down a tree and brings it to the factory

2) It is placed on a machine and the bark is removed

3) It is cut into teeny, tiny pieces known as wood chips

4) They mix the wood chips with water to make a "soup"

5) It is flattened out and the water is squeezed out

6) They let the paper dry and cut it into the desired size

In the video, we also learned that new paper can be made from old paper. We learned it is REALLY important to recycle old paper in our recycling bin because we don’t want to cut down so many new trees. We remembered that trees give us air and we NEED air to live! If there were no more trees, we wouldn’t be able to survive!

 

Ask your child to explain to you how paper is made!

 

Then Ms. Petersen told us that we would be trying origami! We weren’t too sure what origami was, but Ms. Petersen told us we would be folding our paper lots of times to make a new shape without using our scissors to cut! 

 

But first, we needed to figure out the best type of paper to use for origami. We had 4 different paper products to test out: wax paper, paper towel, cardboard and drawing paper. In small groups, we discussed the characteristics of each paper product then presented them to the class. Afterward we made our predictions using tally marks. We noticed that the drawing paper could fold the most number of times and the folds stayed nice.

 

Here are the videos that we watched to create our origami animals. Both classes created the puppy dog face. The morning class created the jumping frog and the afternoon class created the bunny rabbit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the origami folds were a little bit tricky, and we had to try our best. At the beginning, lots of us said that we couldn’t do it, but we got the hang of it soon! We learned it’s important to watch the videos a few times before attempting to start and that it’s REALLY important to use our listening ears.

There are tons of videos on youtube and you can also try searching the local library for origami books if you are interested in creating more at home!