KS1- Textiles
This list supports learning about textiles with 5–7-year-olds, including designing bicycle accessories, woven fish, fridge magnets and puppets. It provides ideas for developing skills such as cutting and joining textiles together in different ways and there are lots of opportunities for children to work on exploring the properties of different materials and how they have been used to create products. This will help them when designing and making their own product, then evaluating them making any modifications they feel are needed to make them suitable for the purpose that they have been designed for. Ideas for D&T projects include a range of relevant contexts including home, school, industry and the wider environment.
What Can You Learn from a Textile Tree?
In this project from the Nuffield Primary Solutions in Design and Technology,children are asked to design and make a simple tree structure using a variety of textiles, paper and card. This activities in the project allow children to handle and experience a variety of textiles and relate them to their everyday uses. With children making textile sample cards to hang on the tree so that it becomes a learning resource for the whole class.
Brompton Bicycle: Key Stage 1 Resources
This resource, aimed at children ages 5-7, contains five design and technology projects that focus on bicycles. Children evaluate bicycle designs, then design and make: bicycle parts and accessories for characters from a book, teddy or for a particular purpose. Throughout the activities, children are encouraged to consider the needs of the rider, to carry out research, to communicate ideas, to solve problems, work collaboratively and to evaluate designs in light of the design brief. The activities can be used as 'one-off’ sessions, an extended project or as part of a whole school design and technology week. Teacher’s notes are provided as well as worksheets on the five activities which are:
*Evaluating a bicycle
*Designing a bicycle for a book character
*Designing a bicycle accessory
*Making a bicycle seat for a teddy
*Making a bicycle easy to find in a crowded area
Designing and Making with Textiles at Key Stage One (Year One): the Loomfish
In this unit, children learn about woven fabrics, and to design and make a fish like construction using a primitive loom. Don't be put off by the fact this is an older resource. Children learn about woven fabrics and how they are traditionally made through this project. they then create their own 'Fish' using a basic loom. The finished loomfish can be displayed in the classroom, so that the different designs can be discussed and evaluated as part of the learning.
What Should Be Stuck to Your Fridge?
This project from Nuffield Primary Solutions in Design and Technology asks children to design a fridge magnet set that will appeal to young children.
The fridge magnets are made from layers, which add considerably to their attractiveness, and are used to hold up a list of commonly mis-spelt words. Each table or group of children will produce one set of fridge magnets and within a group each child will make one.
Designing and Making with Textiles at Key Stage One (Year One): The Classloom
One of the trial units from the Nuffield Primary Solutions in Design and Technology. In this unit, children work co-operatively to produce a large weaving suitable for display in the entrance hall of a school.
The purpose of this activity is to explore weaving, and to design and make a large woven scene using a dress hanging rail as the loom. The activity gives a class the opportunity to create a school display resource which can be updated and re-used in the future.
Section Drawings
Different types of drawing are used to communicate different types of information. Section drawings are a type of 2D drawing that show the parts or features inside a product. In effect, a section drawing shows the view as if the product has been cut in half – most typically this is along the longer dimension of the product, such as its length. Section drawings are used to show what the inside of a product looks like and how the parts of a product fit together.
Producing a section drawing develops drawing skills, whilst simultaneously allowing concepts such as dimensions, proportion and scale to be introduced in a practical context.
In this activity learners will produce a section drawing of a safety helmet worn by cyclists. This activity can be adapted to many D&T projects. Children can label diagrams thinking baout different types of materials being used and the properties that they have which make them suitable for this purpose. For example in the Brompton bicycle activity designing a bicycle seat for a particular person or character.
