A Lively Celluloid Fish

A Lively Celluloid Fish

You will need: Scissors, celluloid or sheet plastic.

Cut a simple fish shape about 4 inches in length from a piece of celluloid or sheet plastic. Give your fish a fairly large tail, as shown below.

Tell your friend about the lifelike properties of this toy fish-how it will curl and wriggle hi a friendly manner when placed in the palm of a warm hand.

Let your friend rub his hands together for a moment or two, so that they are really warm. Get him to extend one hand, palm uppermost, and place the fish in position. Within a few seconds the fish will be curling its head and tail up to meet each other.

The reason for this display of agility is the fact that the plastic does not become warm evenly. The underside expands as it is warmed by the palm of your friend's hand, but the cold upper surface remains the same. The expansion of the underside forces the toy fish to curl quite vigorously.

Children learn best through doing

Before children can understand a thing, they need experience: seeing, touching, hearing, tasting, smelling; choosing, arranging, putting things together, taking things apart. Experimenting with real things.

Old-time school teaching used only words and the teachers thought children knew something if they could repeat it. Now we know better. To reach practical understanding we do not need to use many words with young children.

Children are clever. They learn a lot, without being taught. The greatest skill - to be able to talk, to communicate is learnt outside school. In the classroom it's the children who need to talk the most. Unfortunately it is the teacher who does most of the talking!