RPM Lesson on Zippers by M.

Sherr Altschuler Page 1 of 6

Zippers!
YOU WILL NEED FOR LESSON: 1) a small ball (like tennis) 2) Three feet
of string or yarn (or less, but a lengthy piece) 3) some zippered clothing in
your house that has a YKK zipper! 4) a ruler…

There is a company in Japan that makes a product sooooo popular it

produces enough YEARLY to wrap around the earth 50 times!

๏ I have this string (yarn) and I have this little ball. Let’s pretend the ball is
the earth and see how many times we can wrap the string (yarn) around
the ball before we run out of string! I bet we can’t get it close to 50
times… (have student do, motor model as needed - if easy, maybe have
them count, too)

Wow, we only did ____ times and it seemed like a lot! So 50 times around
the earth would be a great deal! The product we are talking about is the
ZIPPER, and the company is called YKK. They make almost half of all
zippers in the entire world.

๏ Here, we have a YKK zipper — see where the YKK is printed on it?
(Optional: Can you handwrite YKK?)

๏ Go ahead and zip the zipper up and down! (motor model, as needed)
That’s a quality zipper, huh?
Now you

Now you might not realize this, but zippers are a relatively new invention.
Before zippers, people had to use buttons, often many tiny buttons, to
fasten their clothing.

๏ To fasten, we used to use ________ (if choices: buttons OR pins)

๏ What is something you close with a zipper that you could fasten with
buttons instead? (if choices: baseball hat winter jacket)
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The invention of the zipper started with the same guy who invented the
sewing machine. But it went through many versions with many different
inventors before it came to its modern form… which, by the way, was
patented today — April 29 — back in 1913!

๏ The original name for the zipper was the “Automatic Continuous
Clothing Closure.” I’ll make a deal with you. I will try to say that 5 times
fast if you will try to spell it out just once! Here I go… Now you spell it.

๏ I said that modern zipper was patented today in 1913. Do some mental
math. If it is 2020, then that is 100 and how many years ago? (107)

So let’s take a look at the parts of a modern zipper (**SHOW PAGE 5**).
The thingy you pull with is called the “pull” — not surprising. The pull then
slides on something called a “slide” — I like how they name these — easy!

And then the little pieces that fit together as you go up and down are called
the “teeth."

๏ Okay, let’s make up a riddle about zippers with the “teeth part.” Which do
you like best?
What has teeth, but cannot:
A) bite B) chew C) go to the dentist ? (student’s choice, no right answer)

That’s a good riddle!

๏ Optional open: Now do you think, looking at this picture, that there is a
most important part to a zipper? Which part and why? (no right answer)

(Show p.5) Each zipper is attached using the tape on its sides. Usually the
tape is used for sewing the zipper into a piece of clothing. And the zipper
has starts and stops here and here There are also different lengths of
zippers. Like a zipper for a man’s pants is often 9 inches (22 cm) long.

๏ Let’s use this ruler to measure the zipper on the clothing I brought out
before.
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๏ They recently made the longest zipper ever for a publicity stunt. How
long do you think this “longest zipper ever” is?
A) 300 feet (91 meters)
B) 3,000 feet (914 meters)
C) 3.1 miles (4989 meters)

Wow, isn’t that crazy?! It was created by the zipper company Talon for L.A.
Fashion Week. I bet it brought them lots of attention, but I wonder where it
is now?

Surprisingly, when the zipper was first unveiled, it wasn’t very popular. And
it wasn’t even called a “zipper “until B.F. Goodrich Company who used
them on a new kind of rubber boot they were producing. Take a look at their
ad (**SHOW PAGE 6**). For about 20 years, zippers were mostly used for
shoes like these and for tobacco pouches.

๏ Can you point to the name Zippers? To the boot? How about the price?
๏ Open: If you were trying to convince folks back then to use more zippers,
what are the benefits of zippers that you would have mentioned?
(If choices: They made getting ready… CHEAP QUICK PRETTY)

Eventually — in the 1930s — zippers hit the fashion industry. They were
marketed as a way to make children more independent in fastening their
jackets. Then they also started to get popular in men’s trousers.

๏ What is another word for trousers? (if choices SHIRTS PANTS)

๏ Open: In your opinion, do zippers make things easier for autistic people?
Or are buttons easier? What about velcro? Explain…
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Probably the only negative thing about zippers is that they can break or
stick.

Luckily, if they stick, they can often be fixed with some kind of lubricant.

๏ Which of these would NOT be a good lubricant for unsticking a zipper?

vaseline bar soap glue glass cleaner

In honor of the patent of the zipper 107 years ago today, April 29 is National
Zipper Day. What are some things someone can do to celebrate?

๏ Make a cool addition to the pull of a zipper — like add an animal design,
maybe a sports logo, something with jewels… What would you make?
(Option: make a pull with your child by decorating a paperclip or something fancier
like these shrinky dinks https://craftulate.com/shrinky-dink-zipper-pulls/)

๏ To celebrate, we can also make sure we wear something with a zipper…

What is something you enjoy wearing that has a zipper?

๏ We can also post a fun fact about zippers on a social media page with
the hashtag #NationalZipperDay. Would you like to choose something
that we can share on one of my social media pages?

https://www.marketplace.org/2014/01/13/10-amazing-zipper-facts-you-didnt-know-you-wanted-
know/, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zipper, https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/how-to-fix-a-
broken-zipper-263333, https://nationaldaycalendar.com/days-2/national-zipper-day-april-29/
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