In this workshop, we build kaleidoscopes, phenakistoscopes, zoetropes, thaumatropes and other Optical Toys with really difficult names. These toys, which appeared in greater number in the first decades of the 19th century, were, besides their playful purpose, a vehicle for scientific research, in particular regarding the principle of retinal persistence. They are therefore crucial in a line of research that culminated in 1895 with the invention of the Cinema, thus materialising centuries of continuous experiments around the characteristics of our visual perception.