D.T.
Autumn 2
To design and make a freestanding structure
I read the story Ratpunzel to the children then told them we were going to design and make a tower for her, but before that we needed to explore structures
I held a whiteboard on it's edge and asked the children if it was a freestanding structure. They unanimously said no justifying their answer saying that it would fall down if I let it go because the edge / side was not big enough / wide enough.
I gave them the task to explore how to make a freestanding structures with their pencil pot and its contents ( any equipment they always have on their tables). We stopped and looked at each others structures and discussed how they had been built... were they stable? how could they make them more stable ?etc...
The children then looked at famous designers and the structures they had built including playground equipment, towers, bridges and chairs.
After our discussion the children were given the task to construct any of these free standing structures using construction equipment …. Lego, Duplo, Knex and Asmeca. They discussed what they had made and evaluated them. I was very impressed!
Today we explored how to make a tower stable and stop it from falling over. We explored different ways of joining the towers to the base.
We also explored how to make towers using pipecleaners and straws.
After drawing two different designs for Ratpunzel's towers we made our towers drawing on the skills and knowledge we had learnt to build them.
Look at the finished products below, towers any rat would be proud to call home!
