Design Technology – Grades K, 1 and 2

I love teaching Design Technology and all three grade levels that I teach are engaged in this right now. Design Technology is also known as “Children’s Engineering”, which is also known as “Building Stuff”. Children in this age range naturally love to build things and many spend a lot of free time at home playing with Legos, Kinex, Lincoln Logs, etc.  Building at school is different in many ways. First, children are asked to spend a lot more time in the design and planning stage. They are asked to draw a diagram of what they plan to build and spend time discussing it and working out the kinks before they pick up materials to start building. Second, the building projects that students work on have requirements that the students must meet. This forces children to think about building in new ways and engage in problem solving. For example, the First Graders have talked a lot in the past few weeks about how much of the food that we eat has to be driven in trucks to local area grocery stores. For their design project, I asked students to design and build vehicles that had two requirements. The vehicles had to be built out of everyday household materials, have 4 wheels that moved and had to be able to transport one apple up and down “hills” without the apple falling out.

Design Technology gets at what I think science can be all about: creative thinking, planning, problem solving and critical thinking, trial and error, experimentation,  discussion, collaboration, and perseverence. Many of these building projects take place over the course of 3 or 4 45 minute class periods. Students can become frusterated when they run into problems and have to learn to keep at it until they find a solution. What I really enjoy seeing is the students helping one another out both with physical help and with ideas. There is a lot of discussion that goes on during these building periods.

The Kindergarteners were given pieces of rolled up newspaper and lots of tape (!) and told that they could build anything they wanted. Kindergarten is the only grade where I don’t set requirements, at least for this initial project. Having that kind of freedom can be daunting for some, while others immediately know what to do and jump into a project. The students who aren’t quite sure how to begin are either invited into a project by another student or they observe the others for a while and then come up with an idea of their own. Even the students who choose to work by themselves often turn to others for problem solving ideas.

The second graders are about to start their building projects. They will be building musical instruments and have the choice of building a wind, string or percussion instrument.

What’s the “Dangerous Corner”? If you hear your child talk about the “Dangerous Corner”, don’t be alarmed. The Dangerous Corner is simply the corner of the room where I keep the hot glue gun, hammer, nails and hand saw. Only I get to use these things; students line up to see me if they need something glued, nailed or cut.

Here are some pictures of students in action and finished products. Enjoy!

 Kindergarten: 

First Grade projects:

Above: Ryan’s car

Above: Sammy’s steam roller

Above: Charlie’s car

Pretzel Containers Wanted!  – The second graders are about to start their instruments and we need a few more large pretzel containers like the ones pictured below. If you have any, please send them in. Thank you!