Kids how is paper made

Paper is an important part of modern life. People use it in school, at work, to make artwork and books, to wrap presents and much more. Trees are the most common ingredient for paper these days, but people have been taking notes and creating artworks for a very long time using lots of other kinds of surfaces and materials.

Humans painted pictures on cave walls during the Ice Age. The oldest known drawing, found on a small rock in South Africa, was made 73, years ago. Written language came a long time later. The Sumerians , in what is now Iraq, and the Egyptians used pictures in the first written languages more than 5, years ago. These people etched cuneiform and hieroglyph pictures that formed their languages into rock. They also wrote on slabs of wet clay, using a pen or brush made from a reed.

Sometimes they baked these slabs hard in ovens to preserve them. Ancient Egyptian manuscript written and drawn on papyrus, dating to B.

British Museum The Egyptians pioneered the first paper. Papyrus came from a foot-tall 4. They cut the stalk into thin strips, pressed them together and dried them into the long rolls you can now see preserved in museums. They wrote in ink, which didn't smudge or blur on this new paper.

Papyrus made it easy to carry their writing with them in rolled up scrolls - much easier than carting around heavy clay tablets and rocks. Wood tablets covered in beeswax became a popular writing material in Greece, Rome and Egypt. Children used them in school as you might use notebooks today. Heating the wax made it easy to erase the writing and reuse the tablets.

Wax writing tablets from a Greek school 'notebook' used around 2, years ago. British Library The Romans took the next step, making books with papyrus pages.

Special manuscripts used pages made of treated calf skin. In China, ancient writing materials included bone, bronze and wood. But then, a little more than 2, years ago, the Chinese invented a different kind of paper. Early on, it was made from the hemp plant , washed and soaked in water until it was soft. Then it was beaten into a gooey pulp with a wooden mallet and smoothed into a flat frame to dry.

It took Europeans another years to finally start making paper. Simple description for children to understand. But a few more pictures rollers would make it more attractive for children. This really helped me with my homework.

I had to write a news article on something that is made from trees. Thanks a lot for your help because my class had do do a presentation and I chose trees, but next time put in a bit more pictures in. I find it interesting that you said that paper is formed into a pulp mat, which is pressed through a hot roller many times before creating a roll.

When you showed the picture of a finished paper roll, it gave me an idea. Companies can reuse their cores by using a hydraulic stripper so that they can save on manufacturing costs. Your email address will not be published. How is Paper Made From Trees? Now the process was cheaper but the raw material was still expensive. In Friedrich Gottlob Keller Invented a machine that could make pulp for paper out of wood fibres instead of the expensive rag paper.

Paper became cheap enough for everyone to buy. Around the same time, other inventions were made, like the pencil , the fountain pen , and a printing press that used steam power. With this new information technology , people wrote more letters, made more books and newspapers , and kept more records of what they did. Paper is produced in large factories called paper mills. They produce hundreds of thousands of tons of paper each year. Paper is used for writing and printing.

Books, magazines and newspapers are printed on paper. Paper is often used for money. Paper used for money is made in special ways. It does not use wood fiber. It is mostly cotton with additives to make it hard for people to print their own money.

A piece of paper money is called a banknote , a bill or a note. Paper can be used for cleaning. Special forms of paper are used, such as paper towels , facial tissues or toilet paper.

Pretty paper can be used as decoration. It can be pasted onto the walls of a room; this is called wallpaper. Paper can be used to wrap gifts.

This is called wrapping paper or gift wrap. Some kinds of paper are strong and can be used in boxes and other packaging material. Sometimes several layers of paper are held together with glue , to make cardboard.

The microscopic structure of paper: Micrograph of paper autofluorescing under ultraviolet illumination. Card and paper stock for crafts use comes in a wide variety of textures and colors. Paper facts for kids Kids Encyclopedia Facts. Hemp wrapping paper , China, c.