Design and Technology


Super Space in EYFS!

EYFS are coming to the end of their super space topic for this half term. We started with the famous story “Whatever Next!” and enjoyed role-playing a journey to space and having a picnic on the moon. Learning about some of the planets was top of Reception’s ‘What I want to learn’ list and after finding out some interesting facts, they then designed their own using a ‘wash’ effect with felt tips and paintbrushes dipped in water. We thought carefully about the colour of our planets and what they were made from – gas, rock or ice. Constellations were also a big hit; we found out that some constellations can only be seen in certain parts of the world and then recreated some famous ones on black card using chalk. We spent two weeks in total creating our own model of the solar system using papier mache and adding details to each planet; lots of sticky fun! We learnt about gravity and watched videos of astronauts on board the International Space Station, finding out that the further away from earth you get, the less gravity there is. We have enjoyed lots of child-led opportunities in provision including puffy moon painting, making craters in moon dough, designing aliens on the light panel and baking cake pops. We definitely have some budding astronauts in the making!


STEM morning in Class 3

Class 3 have had a wonderful morning exploring and being engineers!

They came up with lots of ideas about what engineering was. This included engineers make complicated things, they build robots, they help other people, they build and fix things.

Our first challenge was cutting an A4 piece of paper so you can fit your entire body through it. Lots of perseverance and experimenting but no luck. We thought a partner might be useful, so we paired up and hey presto – lots of success! Engineers often work in teams to help solve problems just like this.

We then were set off to build a waterproof and windproof house for one of the three little pigs. Each group had a bucket with a range of materials and, despite a bit of trepidation, all our finished products stood up to their final wind and rain shower test and the pig stayed dry!