Design Technology

As part of our D.T textiles project, Year 3 have been very busy designing and creating their own purses/wallets.

First, we looked at existing products, discussing what makes an effective purse. We compared the different fastenings/materials used and also considered the ways in which the purses appealed to the target market.

Next, we experimented with a range  of different materials to see which would be the most suitable to make a purse out of. We tested the materials strength and flexibility and also checked whether they were waterproof or not.

Children then designed  their own products for their intended users. To do this, they needed to think carefully about what fastening/material they wanted to use. Furthermore, pupils tried to make their product designs appealing to their target market by planning to use applique, embroidery or fabric pens.

Afterwards, Year 3 had chance to practise using a range of different stitches including blanket stitch, running stitch and back stitch. This helped students to decide which stitches they would use when creating their products.

Then came the making! Children made paper templates for their purses before cutting their material. They used their own choice of stitches to join the material. To make their products appealing, pupils used a range of different techniques including applique, pens and even embroidery.

Finally, we evaluated our products as a class, considering whether they were appropriate for the intended user. Children discussed anything they would change if they had the opportunity to do the project again.

I have been absolutely blown away by the end results of our textiles project. Everyone has done absolutely amazing! Here are a few examples…

Today, Year 5 continued our Design Technology Project – frame structures. We decided to make bird hides for Year 5 to watch wildlife.

We have already completed investigative and evaluative activities where we investigated and make annotated drawings of a range of portable and permanent frame structures. Then we completed focused practical tasks based on techniques for joining frameworks. Next, we designed and made a small scale frame structure.

He are a few of our small scale frames.

We thought about:

How we could make them stable?

How we could make them stronger?

Where were the weak points?

How we could reinforce them?

How we could improve the design?

We thought about the purpose of our project and the intended users.

Today we made our frame structures.

Now we need to critically evaluate our bird hides against our design specification, intended user and purpose.

Following our work on houses and homes and our walk to view different types of homes, we designed , made and evaluated our own home.  We had a focus on making hinges so that the doors and windows would open.

First we looked for hinges and found them in many places in the classroom, some Mrs Whyman didn’t even think of!

We then practised making different types of hinges and joins that we would use on our homes.

We then made our homes and evaluated them.

We also made homes from building blocks.

Y6 have been working extremely hard during Design and Technology lessons.  They have been designing a nightlight for a younger child.  Part of their design process was to do market research so they prepared questionnaires for the Y2 children.

Today in Design Technology, Y5 continued finding out about framed structures. We summarised our learning about the purpose of a structure and used a focused practical task to find the strongest shape for building.  Which shape do you think is stronger? Is it a triangle or a square?

Today in Design Technology, Year 5 began constructing their bird hides. They used ideas developed when making their models with art straws.

Last week in design technology, we learned that triangles are stronger shapes than squares.  Today we learned how to make shapes stronger by adding card triangles. An ‘L’ joint allows two pieces of wood to be joined at right angles. ‘L’ joints are used to make the corners of rectangular frames. Some people also made square frames or ‘T’ joints using lolly sticks.

After months of waiting due to lockdown, Year 3 have finally started creating their final product for their textiles D.T project. Our task was to design and create our own money container/purse. First we looked at existing products, evaluating the products while considering who their target audiences might be. Then we designed our own purses. To do this, we had to decide what fastening we would use and how we would make our products appealing to the target market. Next we made paper templates for our purses before finally starting to create our final pieces using sewing techniques to join materials. Y3 have made an excellent start to their purses and will finish these off over the next couple of weeks.