Highhill Homeschool: Making Paper

The ancient Egyptians, people of Mesopotamia and Ancient Chinese all made their own paper. My eleven year old daughter has been asking me for years to do a paper making project. I have resisted this project because I'm not very good with wood working and a frame is required, plus the instructions she wanted to follow said to put the paper in a blender. Well I wasn't excited about that either.

Over our Christmas break my son stumbled across the same paper making project my daughter had been desiring and said he wanted to make paper. Well they couldn't wait any longer and the project began. I was pleased that they found different solutions for both of the issues I was concerned about.

Instead of a wooden frame, they created one out of a cardboard box. It only lasted through one paper making process, but I don't think this is something they wanted to do frequently anyway. They just wanted to try to see if they could make their own paper.

The fabric was pulled tight and stapled around the box lid.

Then scrap paper was ripped into small pieces and mixed with hot water. Instead of placing the mixture in the blender, they put it into an old juice container. It had to sit there for three hours and be shaken every 30 minutes.

Next, the water-paper solution was poured onto the frame to drain the water. Then it was flipped onto a sheet of wax paper. They put another sheet of wax paper over top and used a rolling pin to squeeze out the excess water.

They placed the paper next to the heater and a few hours later it was dry. They could even write on it.

I was super impressed with my kids innovation and engineering ability on this project. I had absolutely nothing to do with it. It fits in with our history studies, and is a great craft and science project too. Maybe I will have to stop teaching them, so they can start teaching me?