Category Archives: D&T

D & T Bridges

March 17, 2023Class Work, D&TMr Lo

This term, year 5 have started a new D&T project – Bridges. They started off by trying to make a strong tower from 1 sheet of paper and scissors only! It was great fun and certainly tested their skills.

Then the children were given a template of a bridge and were asked to see how many maths cubes the bridge would hold before collapsing… the results were amazing! Some groups managed some 40 cubes. The next task was to attempt to strengthen the bridge. The children came up with various ideas and one group, managed to hold 94 cubes on their newly designed bridge.

Next, we moved onto the design stage… it’s early days but I’m sure you’ll agree, these bridges are going to be incredible!

Next week, we’ll be making them so keep checking our blog.

Anglo Saxon Bags

December 5, 2022Class Work, D&TMr Lo

Year 5 have been practising their sewing skills in order to make their Anglo-Saxon bags. They are now able to thread a needle, tie a knot and do various stitches such as back stitch and over stitch. We’ve had some great results.

Testing Materials

November 11, 2022Class Work, D&TBells Farm

Year 5 have been testing materials today to decide which one would be the best to make their Anglo-Saxon bag out of. They had various materials and had to test their durability and authenticity, as well as whether the material was waterproof. They all decided that the most appropriate material would be hemp, mainly because of its authenticity. They are now busy designing their bags and will be ready to start sewing soon. 😁

Building Bridges

May 11, 2022D&TBells Farm

Year 5 have worked extremely hard to design, build, complete and test their bridges using levers.

They really have used their knowledge from seeing designs and thinking hard about the needs of the task: to get a car across the bridge and even a boat safely under the bridge once it has been lifted.

Have a look at how brilliant some of the bridges are. They have worked hard to overcome several problems. Some of their ideas were harder to put into practice than they imagined once they began working with their chosen materials.

A great effort Kestrels.

Pulleys

April 25, 2022D&TBells Farm

Today year 5 were experimenting with making pulleys. They followed a set of instructions to make a simple pulley.

It did take some problem solving, as threading the string through the holes in the cup became a challenge, as well as ensuring the knots in the string were tight and the string was the same length.

Once the pulleys were made they enjoyed seeing how it worked and trying to pull up different things. As they experimented, they thought about how to apply a pulley to a bridge.

If you would like to have a go at making a pulley, you too can follow the following instructions. Good luck.

Bridges

April 1, 2022D&TBells Farm

This week Year 5 started their ‘Bridges’ topic. They learnt the 4 types of bridges that exist, as well as how bridges are constructed today. One of the activities was to work with a partner and construct the tallest tower they could, and then see if their construction would balance a ruler…many did!

They then had to construct a bridge out of cardboard. They learnt that when they inserted an arch under the main bridge beam, they were able to place more weight on the bridge and it held.

One group managed to balance an incredible 60 multi cubes before their bridge collapsed. Amazing!

Our Viking-style bags

November 19, 2020Class Work, D&TMr Baddhan

Year 5 have had a great 2 weeks designing and making Viking-style bags in D&T. They have all worked really hard on their sewing and have produced some excellent results. They can now do back stitch and over stitch really well.

Have a look at some of the results.

Designing a Viking-style bag

October 13, 2020Class Work, D&TMr Baddhan

Year 5 have finished their Viking & Anglo-Saxon topic. They showed they’re incredible new knowledge in some very high scoring quiz answers. Well done Kestrels!

Today, they started they’re new D&T topic of designing and making a Viking-style bag to hold their stationery. They researched bags already on the market and carried out their own market research to ascertain what their class mates and teachers thought about the bags they had chosen to research. Tomorrow we will have a go at sewing to demonstrate a seam allowance. Watch out for the photos.

Designing our bridges

March 17, 2020Class Work, D&TMr Baddhan

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.

Sophie’s beam bridge!

March 11, 2020Class Work, D&TMr Baddhan

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!