This afternoon Kestrels in year 5 started designing their bridges, working together in small groups, we thought carefully about the design brief and the materials we have available.

We were asked to make a bridge that would connect two towns separated by water, our bridge would go over the water and needs to allow boats to go under it and cars to go over it. When designing we need to think about scale… is our bridge going to be one way or a two way bridge?

We need to decide if it if is going to have a drawbridge to allow the boats to go under and if we incorporate this into our design… how is it going to work?

Sophie used the bridge she made at home for inspiration.

Kenny and Joey worked really well together, they came up with different ideas and took the best aspects of each one and amalgamated them together into one fantastic design!

Some final designs in progress…

Once our design was finished, we could start planning how we are going to make it.

Following our DT lessons about bridges, Sophie in year 5 Kestrels has completed a design and made a beam bridge at home! She came in this morning with this rather spectacular and funky bridge. The whole class will have the opportunity to design and make a bridge in their small groups in our DT lesson soon!

In DT today, year 5 learnt about the different types of bridges; hanging, beam, arch, cantilever.

We were given instructions and a template to make our own bridge, we could increase the layers of the card platform, then we had to test the different layer’s strength with cubes.

Chandler’s one layer held 5 cubes!

Megan’s two layers also held 7 cubes…

Joey’s 3 layers held 3 cubes.

Sophie and Elliott’s 4 layers held 11 cubes!

There was a way to strengthen the bridge, using one last piece of card.

Evie and Niah put their final pieces of card in the middle of their bridges.

Year 5 learnt about Isambard Kingdom Brunel in DT and the bridges he constructed that are still in use today.

The Clifton Suspension Bridge, designed by Brunel in 1830, is now a famous landmark in Bristol and a Grade I listed building.

In our lesson we were given the challenge of making the tallest tower out of one piece of paper, only using scissors and glue.

Year 5 have today, finished their D&T topic of making Viking style Hemp bags to carry their belongings in. They have learnt how to use various sewing stitches, learnt how to design a Celtic sign and have also designed and added a handle and fastener to their bags. It has been a very successful topic and the children are extremely proud of the end results!

The children in year 5 have started their D&T topic making Viking style bags, out of authentic materials. Over the next few weeks, the children will design, make and evaluate their product. They have practised their sewing skills as well as measured and drawn lines accurately.

The children in year 5 continued their design and technology project today, choosing the ingredients for their ice cream creation. They started by studying several Ice cream recipes and chose the ingredients they liked the best. The children then had to compare prices of their products from a range of supermarkets to see where they could source each ingredient from.

Today year 5 started their D&T project – designing and inventing a brand new ice cream dessert. They will be working in teams to produce a mouth-watering dish to tempt our ‘Come dine with me’ judges on Friday!

This morning, the children were given a table full of ingredients to taste and they had to score them in terms of flavour, taste and texture. They worked really well in their teams and are looking forward to planning their recipe tomorrow.

Year 5 have now completed their Design & Technology project on designing and making a Viking-style bag. They have learnt to use a range of stitches and added handles and fasteners to their bags. Today they evaluated their products to see if they were fit for purpose and I’m sure you will agree…we have some incredibly skilled children. Well done Year 5, you put so much effort into this project, We invited Miss Coghlan (subject leader for D&T), to see our bags and she was extremely impressed with the children”s ability