Hi there! Have you ever seen a really big pencil? Well, I have one right here, but I usually use regular-sized pencils to write. Today, we’re going to learn about how pencils are made. Emiliano asked this interesting question, so let’s dive in!
Before pencils were invented, people used different things to write. One of these was a large feather called a quill. They would dip the quill into a jar of ink to write. It sounds fun, but it could be messy. Imagine accidentally spilling ink all over your paper!
Some people tried using charcoal, which is what you get when you burn wood. Charcoal is solid, so it doesn’t spill like ink. But it has its own problems. It can make your hands dirty and leave black marks everywhere because it’s soft and crumbly.
This is where the pencil comes in! A pencil has a special material inside called graphite, not lead. Graphite is like charcoal but not as messy. It’s inside a wooden case, so it doesn’t get all over your fingers when you write.
Making a pencil is like making a sandwich! Imagine two pieces of wood as the bread and a flat piece of graphite as the filling. The wood pieces are glued together with the graphite in the middle. This is how the first pencils were made.
Today, pencils are made in factories. Machines start with flat pieces of wood and carve grooves into them. Glue is added, and then the graphite is placed in the grooves. Another piece of wood is put on top, creating a pencil sandwich. Finally, saws cut the wood into individual pencils.
Pencils solved many problems with writing. They don’t spill like ink, and they don’t make a mess like charcoal. Next time you use a pencil, think about how clever the invention is!
Thanks to Emiliano for the great question! There are so many interesting things to learn about, like why we get dizzy when we spin or why butterflies are so colorful. Keep asking questions and stay curious!
Make Your Own Pencil Sandwich: Gather some craft sticks, a strip of black paper, and glue. Imagine the craft sticks are the wood pieces and the black paper is the graphite. Glue the black paper between two craft sticks to create your own pencil sandwich. This activity helps you understand how pencils are made by mimicking the process with simple materials.
Graphite Art Exploration: Use a pencil to draw a picture on a piece of paper. Notice how the graphite leaves marks on the paper. Try shading by pressing harder or softer with the pencil. This will show you how the amount of pressure changes the darkness of the lines, helping you see the versatility of graphite.
Observe and Report: Next time you use a pencil, pay attention to how it feels in your hand and how it writes on paper. Write down or draw what you notice about the pencil’s design and how it helps you write neatly. Share your observations with a friend or family member and ask them what they think about pencils.
Sure! Here’s a sanitized version of the transcript:
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(ringing) – Hold on one second, just gotta finish writing this down. Hi, it’s Doug. Okay, this is probably the biggest pencil you’ve ever seen, and I don’t normally use a pencil this big, but I do like to use pencils instead of pens whenever I write things. Someone named Emiliano has a question about pencils. Let’s give him a call now. (ringing) – Hi, Doug. – Hi, Emiliano. – I have a question for you. How are pencils made? – That’s a great question. Pencils are everywhere around us today. You probably have one near you right now, but pencils haven’t been around forever. Have you ever thought about this? What did people use to write with before there were pencils? Now, don’t let your mind go to things like pens or crayons or markers. I’m talking about a time before any of these things were invented too. How did people used to write?
Well, one way that many people used to write was with a large feather called a quill, and people would dip that into a jar of ink. You might have heard of this before. Now, to me, it actually sounds kind of fun to write that way, and it can be. People still occasionally write with these just for fun, but why did people stop using them? Well, think about it. Can you see any problems you might run into if you use a feather and a jar of ink to write? Now would be a good time to pause the video and discuss.
Okay, you ready? Well, imagine you’ve got a jar of ink sitting there on your desk. You reach over to dip the feather in the ink jar and whoops, you drip some ink on the page, or worst yet, what if you accidentally tip over the ink jar and spill it everywhere? To get around this problem, some people thought, well, instead of using a liquid like ink, why not write with something solid? For example, people had known for a long time that if you take a piece of wood and you burn it, it’s what we call charcoal. It’s actually pretty good at writing. Not only does charcoal not spill, it’s also pretty easy to carry around. Charcoal does have some other problems though. Turns out it leaves your hands covered in black soot, and even worse, it’s soft and crumbly. Even if you had gloves on when you used it, you’d still get lots of little bits of it all over your paper.
Well, enter the pencil. It’s funny to think of a pencil as something that had to be invented, but it did. Everything about a pencil has been carefully chosen by someone to solve some of these problems I’m telling you about. You see, you’ve got this solid writing material there, so unlike ink, it won’t spill, but it’s encased inside of a piece of wood, so unlike charcoal, when you go to write, it won’t get all over your fingers. In fact, that stuff inside a pencil, you hear people call it lead. It’s actually a material called graphite. It’s similar to charcoal, but it’s not as crumbly, so it doesn’t leave little pieces all over your paper.
We don’t know for sure who invented the pencil, but whoever did it must have been really clever. I mean, think about it. Look at this picture of a bunch of unsharpened pencils. How did they get the graphite inside of the wood like that? I mean, what do they do? Do they carve these long pieces of wood and then drill a tiny hole through the middle? It turns out the secret is to make a sandwich—not a sandwich you eat, but a sandwich made of wood. This person is showing how some of the first pencils were made. Instead of two slabs of bread, he’s got two slabs of wood, and he’s applying glue to them. Then he takes a flat piece of graphite and puts it in between the two pieces of wood. He presses the top layer on that, and now he’s got a type of pencil. So that’s what the first pencils looked like: a flat piece of graphite sandwiched between two slabs of wood. You just sharpen it with a knife.
Now, pencils today look very different, but they’re still made the same way. If you look closely at an unsharpened pencil, you can see they’re still sandwiches of wood and graphite. Have you ever noticed how some pencils look like they have a little line through them? That’s because two pieces of wood were glued together, and you can see where they meet. Now, today, most pencils are made by machines in factories like this. They start with flat pieces of wood. Each piece will be made into many pencils. Saws carve grooves into each piece of wood, then glue is squirted into the grooves. Next, it’s time to glue in the pencil graphite. Here comes in the graphite, and as it goes around, the machine drops it into the grooves on each piece of wood, then another piece of wood flips on top, creating the pencil sandwich. Finally, saws cut apart all the individual pencils.
So in summary, the invention of the pencil solved many of the problems with writing, like ink spilling or charcoal making a mess. That’s all for this week’s question. Thanks, Emiliano, for asking it. Now, for the next episode, I reached into my question jar and found three questions submitted to me that I’m thinking about answering. When this video’s done playing, you’ll get to vote on one. You can choose from why do we get dizzy when we spin, why doesn’t glue stick inside the bottle, or why are butterflies so colorful? So submit your vote when the video’s over. I want to hear from all of you watching. There are mysteries all around us. Stay curious and see you next week.
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This version removes any informal language and maintains a professional tone while preserving the content.
