I just discovered that Fisher-Price has a service that will produce custom View-Master® slide reels for you.

And I'm stumped.

Do you remember View-Masters? Those little plastic, binocular-like toys that you played with as a child, with the handle that you would flick with your thumb?* You'd insert a slide disk into the top of the viewer and each time you flicked its handle, it would advance to a new picture. Each eyepiece actually looked at the same picture taken from two slightly different angles, so theoretically, each picture you looked at was in 3-D.

They were so cool!

So anyway, it seems Fisher-Price will produce these custom slides for anyone. Apparently, most of their clients are small businesses and PR firms (which is so awesome that it hurts my brain), but they'd be great in the classroom.

And that's my dilemma.

While every fiber in my nerdy teacher soul tells me that this would be a great final stage for a classroom project, I can't see exactly how. The only idea I've got at the moment (and frankly, it's a pretty good one) is as a graduation present to our 8th graders with scenes from their class trip to New York City. I just know that there has to be a more classroomy application, though.

Any ideas? Your suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

 

 

* Obviously, the toy had a handle that you'd flick, not the child. (Though, as a fat child, the other kids were pretty merciless about flicking my handles. Ah, the emotional scarring...)