Everyday we use pencils.
We use lead pencils for our school work and coloured pencils for drawing awesome pictures!
But who invented the pencil?
Well the truth is no-one really knows. What they think happened is in 1500′s England, there was a big storm that blew over a tree. When the storm cleared, the villagers inspected the tree to discover a black substance known as graphite.
The graphite was perfect for marking everything, including sheep!
Pencils have come along way since then and now are made in factories.
The pencils begin as a big block of wood that is cut into lots of smaller lengths. The graphite is then inserted into the wood and the pencil ends up in your pencil case!
Did you know?
That the lead pencil isn’t made of lead? Before graphite was discovered people would use lead to mark different objects and the name has stuck to this day!
