Blog3-Lamination

Blog3-Lamination                                                                                                                       contd- 12/04/2010

Next day when I came to the centre, ‘D’ rushed to me and asked me for his pictures from the previous day. I was surprised because he still remembers his work from the previous day. I showed the pictures to him.  He became very happy and excited when he saw his pictures. Then he showed these pictures to his friends at the centre. I asked him whether he liked to laminate his pictures. He suddenly asked me what lamination was. I explained him that it is a process of covering his pictures with a plastic coat so that the cover protects them from being damaged. He agreed to do the lamination and in the afternoon, I told him that we could do the lamination then. Few other children also followed us to see the lamination. 

Firstly, I showed the plastic sheet and told them that it is called the ‘pouch’. Then I turned on the laminator and I asked the children to wait for some time till the laminator gets hot so that the plastic sheet will be melted and coated on the pictures. For the children’s safety, I asked them to sit down and reminded them not to touch the hot laminator and warned them if they do, their hands will be get burnt. Children patiently waited for the laminator to get hot and ready. I kept his pictures inside the plastic sheet and put them into the laminator. After a couple of minutes, the laminated pictures came out from the laminator. Children touched on the laminated pictures and said to me that it was thick. I told them that it enables us to keep the pictures more safe and the plastic coating will protect it from being damaged.  ‘D’ was very happy and he told me that he is taking them to home to show them to his mum and took them to home. Te Whāriki says that “using many materials for different purposes enables children to recognize that different technologies may be used in various places and settings (p. 95). From this technical experience, children got an opportunity to understand about how technologies can help us to keep things more durable and keep them for long time. Children could learn a new technology and gained more knowledge about the science which is useful to keep materials more durable.