Dt

[Guest]

Juat a quickie-

Does anyone know of any easy and effective DT ideas for Reception? Last year we made catamarans to use on the local lake and the children really enjoyed using and making them.

 

Lynn

[mundia]

Welcome on board dartybunny (love the name)

 

I think you have picked the one area where we dont seem to have a lot of experts (am I wrong, then please make yourself known to us )

 

But we did have a duscussion a while back. You will find it here

 

WE also had a discussion on the use of the construction area here

 

Hope that these may be of some use to you, but perhaps you could share your catamaran idea with us?

[bubblejack]

Our children have made paper planes. We cheated and drew dots on the folding lines to help them. Over the next few weeks they were taking paper off of the writing table and attempting to make their own. Also we have made paper kites with long string tails decorated with tissue paper. We let them fly them outside.

[Helen]

Hi Lynn,

Are you obliged to plan one item that all the children will make or do you have the freedom to allow them to decide what to make with the given resources? Could you choose one fixing technique to teach them, and then let them design and make something of their choice?

[Guest]

It never occurred to me that paper planes are DT!!! I had loads floating around the class today - some realy good designs too. We'll have to do it again tomorrow & I'll get some pics!

 

Dianne

[Guest]

Hi everyone! Thanks for replying so quickly!

 

My school like an idea to be covered by all the children, it's a bit restricting but ensures they all give it a go.

 

The catamaran- you need; two large drinks bottles, 2 metal coat hangers-(parents had loads from dry cleaners)paper, one laminate per child and elephant/duck tape, a ribbon for a burgee, a long piece of strinf and a scrap of old material.

 

Colour the inside of the coke bottles-

- we used powder paint and sparkles but to be honest the colour bit didn't work too well as they had to be shaken up when the colour settled.

 

Use the duck tape to attatch coat hanger 1 (hook upwards) to the top back of the bottles-one each side of the hanger-gap inbetween.

 

You will need to the bending and covering but they can do the fixing-

Bend the hook of hanger 2 so that it is straight and cover it with duck tape so that it the sharp part is hidden. attatch it with the tape to the front top of the bottles- angle hanger 1 so that the hook goes round the stem of hanger 2 and tighten it and cover.

 

The children can design and colour a sail and then laminate it. They can choose some ribbon for a burgee and attatch to top of mast.

 

Attatch string to middle of hanger 1 and tie other end to scrap of material as a handle - make the line long!

 

Fix the laminated sheet on slightly curved to catch the wind

-hole punch corners and fix with string-

and voila!

 

Time consuming as I say but we had a lot of comments about them!

 

It's really hard to try and put an idea into words when you can't use pics isn't it!!! I hope that makes sense!!

 

Lynn

[Guest]

Hi Lynn the catamaran sounds complicated and the sort of thing a Yr6 teacher would have thought up. How much help did the children need, had they seen a catamaran. Not the sort of thing I would expect children in our foundation stage to be doing. Our DT advisor gives us very different activities to try, joining materials. junk box animals, making boats that will float from a variety of materials, evaluating building kits, testing packet mix cakes following the instructions. Making a new chair for Baby Bear. Houses for 3 little pigs. That's all I can remember off the top of my head.

[Guest]

Last half term our topic was the Gingerbread Man story. In DT the children received a letter from the gingerbread man saying he knew that they were good at making things and that he needed help as he always got eaten by foxes in stories. He wondered whether they could make him something to cross the river. In our plans we'd written down bridges, tunnels and boats. After reading out the letter we remembered a pile of junk we'd happened to leave out by the bin. Card, art straws, old string, sticks etc (we made joining stuff available - glue, split pins, sellotape, treasury tags, etc) and wondered what the children could do to help. The activity greatly exceeded our expectations. The suggestions included magic flying carpets, flying cars, helicopters, rowing boats, speed boats, submarines, rockets ......... We started by getting the children to draw a design (having seen the available materials) they then went to the making table with their design and got to work. The problem solving aspect of the activity really seemed to motivate the children.

 

Angela

[Guest]

I know Mimi, it was relly complicated but once we had started the DT co-ordinator liked the idea and wanted it followed through. As part of our seaside topic we talked about activities you could do at the beach and one of the children brought in their holiday video... there happened to be catamarans on it. The children got really excited about seeing it and wanted to make boats- but were not very impressed when we made smaller ones. They did need quite a bit of support- to hold things in place while they fixed bits on.

It was worth it in the end.

 

It did work well but I have to admit maybe I was getting a bit too excited about it too and was being too adventurous with the idea. It did work out really well though.

[Guest]

hi,

i had a really successful lesson the other day. we read the bokk billy goats gruff and then as a class dicussed the brigde and how it could be made stronger, wider etc

 

the children then tried to make a bridge. we has the large construction kits out for the children to use to try and build a bridge. in the creative area the children had paper, card etc and tried to make one here.

and we then had the water and sand tray out (this was turned into the scene with a small bit of sand and a river of water) so the children could use small figures of goats etc to retell the story. they also had to use a variety of things to build the bridge for the goats to cross.

 

hope this gives you some ideas, we used it as a very cross curricular theme.

 

clare

 

[Guest]

Hi, our fs co-ordinator has created a 'making place' which has a variety of materials readily available at all free play times. It is not huge and can accomodate 4 children at any one time. We also have planned activities at other times of course.

 

This area is always used with some great results. We encourage the children to choose their own resources and whilst guidance is offered it is very much self initiated. Resources include types of fasteners, boxes tubes wool lolly sticks, matchsticks, tape. treasury tags plus other items.

 

We have found that children who would not normally access maybe a more planned activity will usually access the making place.

 

just another idea although one i am sure is used widely

[JacquieL]

Oh dear when I heard about the catamarans on the lake I imagined the Reception class sailing away- imagine the Health and Safety assessment, but oh how they would love it!

I had a workshop area something like the one dunkirk mentions, full of all sorts of recyled materials and things for joining them together. The children can make whatever they wish. They also made things for the role-play area, like the kayak and skiddoo, x-ray machine for the hospital etc. and we planned these together after looking at pictures. Boats that float, vehicles that move, planes that fly, clothing for the three bears, designing cards for Xmas, hats for the Roamer etc. I think we are all doing DT perhaps without even realising it.

I think that children need to be shown how to do some things and a very simple DT mechanism is a pop-up. These can be done with lolly sticks and the children tape a figure on the top. Then using a piece of card with two stips across it the children can design a front for the pop-up to pop-up from - if you can picture it. Once they have had a go at making one of these I find that they soon design their own. Bears from behind bushes, ghosts from castles, etc.

Presenting problems from stories is a really good way for the children to use DT for problem solving. I went on a DT course once and we used the story Mrs Honey's Hat, and then we all had to make a hat from materials provided- it was great fun- size, shape, fitness for pupose, aesthetics etc. The Three Little Pigs is a story I think we must all use at some time of other as well.

Book-making is another DT skill which is probably going on in the setting, as we all have items for doing this is the writing area. Also making envelopes for letters which children seem to do once they have run out of the real thing. Working in the construction area, putting out the train track, making bridges and roads, designing castles, zoos, airports and farms are all DT as well. So are the houses and gardens the girls seem to really enoy making in the lego. Making dens and designing bird feeders are common activities as well. Talking to them about what they have done, why have they designed it like this, what else could they do- would they change anything etc. then adds the evaluation part of DT to their activity. Finally could you draw a plan of your model so that someone else could try to make it too and if they can begin to write labels on it then that would be the icing on the cake for me.

[Marion]

Our DT workshop area has all the things mentioned plus a workbench with hammers saws drills screwdrivers and we have buckets with various size offcuts of wood. Most of the time the children are free to build what they want in the area but as Jacquie says it is good to give them a focus and show them different techniques. Some of the things even our youngest children make with little or no help are really amazing.

[Guest]

You can make Elmers from plastic milk bottles. The plastic is really easy for them to cut with normal scissors. The handle is the trunk and you can cut feet shapes into the sides. Ears can be attached with split pins or just stuck on. We use tissue paper squares stuck on for his body colours. I never look at a milk bottle without thinking of Elmer now!

[JacquieL]

Whilst I think it is important for chidlren to be given ideas, shown mechanisms, like the pop-up or ways of joining things together, how to make an axle with wheels on, unless some bright spark has already done this for us to show other children etc. I do think that the children should then use these to feed into their own ideas, rather than everyone make the same thing in the same way.

A task like getting them to make animals which stand up from card can be really interesting as they will come up with all sorts of ways, very inventive, but I would also give them suggestions such as folding or sliding in feet if no-one came up with those. The animals would be their own design though. As with everything else we are providing opportunities for them to develop skills.

[Susan]

This seems to nave been in the wrong place for a very long time but I am going to move it into the curriculum area as it seems to have been given a new life this week!

[Guest]

One activity we did which worked well was to design and make a bag for shopping with - I then adapted this to make a new bag for Postman pat - we had some great designs and shapes and children were given a wide range of materials to make them with and join them to gether. We taught them some skills as we went as how to use a stapler safely and join materilas in different ways and then we left it up to them to make their own choices helping those where necessary - postman pat had a great new range from a fluffy orange bag to a triangle shaped one. I've also done in the past - ways to help the gingerbread man cross the river, a pop up troll and sliding boat. I've found some certain skills need teaching but then tend to leave the same materials out for the children to apply what they've learnt when they are armed with a few new skills a few years I went on a DT course and for foundation they suggested some of the DT was to include looking at an item such as slippers and talking about how it was made and put together rather than just making anything!