Making Paper at the Franklin Institute

We have done So much since we arrived here on Tuesday!

On Thursday we went to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. If I tried to write a post about everything we did there it would be fifteen pages long! So, I thought maybe I should do a couple different posts.

One of the first things we did when we got there was make paper. That was pretty neat. I had forgotten that that was one of the things we could do.

The Kiddo went first. The guy put some sort of orange pulpy looking stuff in the bucket of water and stirred it around. He told us what the orange stuff was but I missed what he said.

Anyway, he stirred it and then let the Kiddo help him lower the screen down into the water. They swished it once or twice and then pulled it all back out.

He set it down and gave the Kiddo a sponge and told him to sponge the water off. So, the Kiddo patted the screen with the sponge and squeezed it back into the tub a few times.

Then the guy turned the "paper" that was on the screen out onto a piece of felt, covered it with another piece of felt, put it in a giant press and the Kiddo and my Brother turned the crank. They pressed a lot more water out of it before they unwound the crank.

The man carefully pulled the paper off the press and rolled it up in a piece of paper securing it with a rubber band.

After it was dry we unrolled it. Here is the finished product. A piece of paper made by the Kiddo!

I forgot that the guy dropped little Flyer's logos in the tub so when we made the paper there would be Flyer's logos on it. Philadelphia, you know. :)