Design & Technology
2024 - 2025
Chocolate Tasting! (Autumn Term)
Class 4 and 5 came together for a mass chocolate tasting as a starter for their topic on the Mayans.
Have a peek here!
2023 - 2024
Bridge Design (Summer Term)
Please read about our designing here.
Moon Buggy Construction (Spring Term)
Our DT project for this term was to design, construct and evaluate a moon buggy that can travel in a straight line. There was a lot of Mathematics involved in this construction! The children enjoyed working with different tools to develop their skills, such as: saw, hammer, drill, and making sure they had the measurements correct. In addition, they looked out how to create the movement, thinking about pulleys and electrical circuits. There were some that managed to get their moon buggy moving, but it was quite a challenge.
Greek Food Tasting (Spring Term)
As part of our Greek Day, we have been understanding the principles of a healthy and varied diet in throughout Greece. We used our scientific knowledge of food groups and our pallet to investigate and analyse a range of Greek cuisine. I am not sure all would agree olives are tasty! See the link below for photos of our day.
Shaduf Constructing (Autumn Term)
We have enjoyed a great Forest School session this afternoon, focussing on our Ancient Egyptian topic. We have learnt about the importance of the River Nile and how Ancient Egyptians constructed a 'Shaduf' to support the supply of water to their crops. We decided to have a go at creating our own to understand more about how a lever system works.
2022 - 2023
A Meal fit for King Henry VIII (Summer term)
Our mission in DT Food was to create a 3-course meal that King Henry VIII would have eaten. The children were tasked with researching the food that was available during the Tudor era, which appeared to be dishes with a lot of red wine! Once researched, a menu was to be created, which had to include images of the dishes (using their computing skills of inserting, resizing and placement), as well as ingredients and method for cooking. All that was left to do was to prepare the dishes ready for our banquet! After a safety briefing about hygiene, knife handling and contamination, the children followed their recipe instructions to create each dish using skills such as: slicing, dicing, whisking, seasoning, boiling and egg parting! I am delighted to say the banquet was a success!
Pyrland Farm Visit (Summer 2023)
As part of our Tudor topic, we have been researching food King Henry VIII would have eaten at a Royal Banquet in order to create our own 3-course meal. We found out that some of the items he ate were fruit and beef. We enjoyed a wonderful trip to Pyrland Farm, where we found out about the journey of cows on a working farm, as well as other items they produce themselves. We sampled some milkshakes (not sure they were quite a Tudor drink, but were delicious) and homemade biscuits. We even bought the fruit for our starter and dessert for our 3-course meal! A huge thank you to Pyrland Farm for this opportunity.
Viking Longboat (Spring Term)
The children have enjoyed working on their DT project of creating a Viking Longboat. Set criteria was given: it had to be water tight, historically correct, level and materials fit for purpose. After looking at the range of materials, designs were created, evaluated and improved. Children learnt to safely use a range of tools such as: saws, hand drills, screwdrivers and glue guns. Once constructed, it was time to test! Using the microbit they had programmed as a spirit level (see computing https://cheddonbwmat.org/computing-4/), testing took place on water. We had some successes and some failures. However, through the evaluation process, they were able to recognise improvements and adjustments to their models.
Our Iron Age Village (Autumn)
We have had a rather muddy couple of sessions constructing our Iron Age village. Thank goodness for a large muddy puddle, where we were able to mix hay and leaves in to help create the walls of the roundhouses. The children had great fun looking like swamp monsters!
Ideas for our Class Hill Fort (Autumn)
This term, we have been exploring the Iron Age with a particular focus on settlements. We have begun to think about how we are going to create our own class settlement; looking at the materials to use to construct out roundhouses.
2021 - 2022
Roman Inspired Aqueducts (Spring Term)
During this spring term, we were learning about Aqueducts. We had investigated the original ideas, as found by the Romans, and made comparisons with how our water is transported from the source to our taps at present. We then set out to design and build our own aqueducts, which took a lot of cardboard and strong tape! Our aqueducts were showcased within our 'Class Museum', where parents and carers were able to look at the children's hard work.
Chocolate Boxes (Autumn)
The children have been using their knowledge of nets (Maths) to create a box ready for their chocolates to sit in. Once they had decided whether they wanted to make a cube, cuboid, square-based pyramid or tetrahedron, they had to draw, cut it out and score all folds. They were then ready for the printing process.
