In our DT lessons we are working towards making a fire engine! We are at the very start of the project at the moment, investigating existing products. Today, we looked closely at small wheeled vehicles to find out more about how they work.
Category Archives: DT
Our Pizzas
This term we have been learning about healthy food and have designed and made our own vegetable pizzas. We learned some very valuable skills including food hygiene, cutting skills and weighing using kitchen scales.
Here are some pictures of our finished pizzas – they were delicious!
Pizza
Friday was a very busy day in Toucan class. We are beginning our first DT project in Year 2. We have learnt a lot about different types of food over the last half term, especially healthy foods. We decided to make healthy pizzas for our cooking in DT.
We needed to know what a pizza tastes like before we could design and make our own. Miss Reeve brought in different types of pizza, and we eagerly tried them. Most of us enjoyed the wrap-based pizza with just tomato sauce. We also liked dough-based pizza. What a yummy lesson!
Making Cushions
Year 2 have been working incredibly hard in DT designing and making their own cushions. They were asked to design a decorative cushion with a shape and sequins or buttons. Once they had cut the fabric into the correct shapes they then used a running stich to sew the cushion together.
These cushions will be coming with us to Year 3 to use in the book corner in our classroom.
Designing Fire Engines
Our new Design and Technology Topic has started. Toucans have been challenged to construct a Fire Engine! They have have already researched existing products thinking about the following questions:
What do the Fire Engines that they have seen look like? Year Two drew a picture of a fire engine that they had seen.
What do they think they are made out of? Year Two thought that they could be made from glass, metal and rubber. Some Toucans decided that these materials could be welded together.
The children were asked if our ‘product’ had got any special features? We made a very long list including hoses, ladders, they were painted bright colours, sirens to alert other road users they needed to get through, water tanks and writing at the front. Toucans did some market research amongst their classmates including what people liked about existed Fire Engines, what could be improved and what their product would definitely have to keep!
They have now designed their very own fire engine on graph paper trying to include all of the important features. They look amazing!
Making Pizza
Friday was a very busy day in Toucan class as we finally reached the point in our learning in DT this term where it was time to make our final product. Our first DT project in Year 2 was cooking. We have learnt a lot about different types of food over the last term, especially healthy foods. Therefore we decided to make healthy pizzas for our cooking in DT.
Pizza? Healthy? You may be wondering why! Well after lots of discussions as a whole class about what we would like to make and what our favourite foods were, we all came down to the decision that pizza was up there with one of the most popular dishes with Year 2!
As we wanted to keep within our topic of healthy foods, we discussed what smart swaps we could make to make our pizzas that little bit healthier, we chatted through several ideas before we reached our final decision. In the end we decided to use mini wraps for our pizza as they were a lot smaller and perfect for our tiny tummies!
We began with the most important and hygienic thing of all, which was washing our hands, before handling any food.
We all began with one wrap each. We squeezed 1 tablespoon of tomato puree onto our wrap and spread it evenly to make our tomato base.
We then moved onto what toppings we would like on our pizza. The three vegetable options were peppers, mushrooms and sweetcorn.
We had to prepare our vegetables before putting them onto our pizza, so we had a quick reminder of how to cut vegetables safely before we began and chopped small chunks of pepper and added them to our pizza. Another skill we were practising was our peeling skills. Thinking of something to peel was tricky for a pizza topping, but Miss Williams’ suggestion of mushrooms was the perfect idea. We took the stalk of the mushroom out and then we were able to peel the skin off the mushroom before chopping it and adding it to our pizza.
Then it came to the fun part; adding the pepperoni and the cheese. All the children had 5 slices of pepperoni each to add. We then had to use scales to accurately measure and weigh our cheese. The children carefully grated their cheese onto the chopping board and then added it to the bowl on the scales and weighed 40g each before sprinkling it over their pizza.
Finally, it was cooking time. Our pizza’s only took around 10 minutes in the oven and came out looking and smelling delicious!
A very busy but successful day all round for us and was a brilliant way to end our week. I hope everyone enjoyed the making process and more importantly eating your pizzas!
Designing a Pizza!
Year 2 this week are continuing with their Design and Technology project which this half term is cooking! Toucans have already decided as a group what to make – the end result should be a tasty pizza.
Year 2 have researched using packaging from old pizza boxes. Looking closely, the children found cooking instructions and the ingredients. They then discussed what ingredients to use for their pizza. They talked to one another asking each other what their favourite toppings were and what they didn’t like. They then questioned whether they would change any of their thoughts from the feedback their friends had given.
Today they designed their pizza and decided who it would be for. Part of the activity today was to draw how they would like their pizza to look. Toucans are getting quite excited and some can’t wait to do the preparation and cooking! Watch this space!!!
Creating Cushions!
Toucans have been extremely busy designing a cushion suitable for a younger child/sibling to use in the book corner, if they were reading. The class carried out market research and looked at a variety of cushions. They compared material, shape, decoration, colour, fastenings and stitching. Each child designed and planned their own cushion. Next the class practised running stitch, which took a lot of perseverance and concentration. Threading a needle is very tricky!
Toucans got busy stitching to make their beautiful cushions. After the children had made their cushions they really enjoyed decorating them with sequins, buttons and felt shapes/pictures. Afterwards, Toucans evaluated their cushions and thought about what they were most please about (what went well) and what would they change if they made a cushion again (next time, it would better if……). Have a look at our spectacular cushions! Which one is your favourite and why?
Creating Tudor houses
Today we made a Tudor houses as we are learning about the Great Fire of London. The houses were made of wood and in narrow streets. We made our houses by sticking a template into card. We cut and folded the net to make our houses. Check out our blog tomorrow as we are going to re-create how the fire spread!
Practising stitching
In our DT lessons we are learning how to sew. We have designed our own spiders ready to make next week. Today we had a practise of running stitch to prepare for sewing on our own.
Weaving our tablemats
Today we enjoyed an arty day! We learnt how people in the rainforest weave leaves to make items for their homes. We practiced our own weaving skills to make ourselves a tablemat. We think they look fantastic!
Our fire engines
Today Toucans have had a DT day! This week we have researched how toy vehicles moved. We then designed our own fire engines which we made today. We had to think really carefully about how to solve our own problems. There was a lot of perseverance needed!
We are very pleased with our fiished fire engines!
Printing our tablecloths
This week we have been very busy preparing for our Healthy Restaurant tomorrow. In our Art lessons we have been learning about printing and we put this new skill to use by making printing tiles to print our own tablecloths. We think they look fabulous!
Soft toy spider
Our DT project this term was to make a soft toy spider learning and using sewing skills. First we examined real soft toys, having a close look at the seams. We investigated different types of stitches and then explored what we wanted our to look like. We designed with a person in mind who we were making it for. This helped us to make important choices like what colours they would like and whether they would like a friendly-looking spider or one more like a real life spider.
We then learnt how to do running stitch to sew our two pieces of felt together. We used real needles so had to think about how we would keep ourselves and others safe while we sewed. We then completed our spiders by decorating them. We are going to evaluate our DT project this week then take our spiders home for the person we made them for. We think they look amazing!
Photos of our finished fire engines
Here are a selection of photos of our completed fire engines.
Well done to all the Toucans!
Constructing our fire engines
Today we finished constructing our fire engines. We had to use many skills to make them including measuring, cutting and joining. We also had good ideas for how we wanted to make things but sometimes they didn’t quite work out as we planned! This meant we has to use our problem solving skills and find a different way of doing something.
Our finished fired engines look fabulous!
Researching about fire engines
This week in our topic lessons we have started our next DT project. We are going to be making fire engines so first we had to find out how vehicles move. We found that they all had wheels and axles and learnt some facts about them.
We then researched what fire engines looked like and used this knowledge to design our own. We made a list of tools and resources that we would need to use.
Non-chronological report
Today we have written a final non-chronological report as a hot task. This means that we didn’t have any help in planning or writing our reports. Miss Williams told us we were writing a report about Christmas (which was very exciting!) and then we worked completely on our own. Our teachers were very proud of how much we have learnt about non-chronological reports over the last few weeks as our reports on Christmas were excellent! Here is a sample but they were all very good. Everyone used the correct layout and remembered to write an introduction and conclusion. Most children also showed that they had met (or were on the way to meeting) the target they were set at the beginning of the unit. This is excellent learning Toucans! Very well done!
Here are some photos of us preparing for and serving our customers!
Our Healthy Snack Café report and photos
On Friday 15th December Year 2 held a very successful Healthy Snack Café. We have been working towards it all term by learning about food groups and what is and isn’t healthy. We chose our own recipes using healthy ingredients like wholemeal flour, fruit, vegetables and honey instead of sugar.
We worked in groups and each group was responsible for making a different healthy snack:
Brooke, Kaiden, Taya, Mason, Kai and Harley made Cheerio cakes.
Cerrys, Esmay, Zaynab, Kerris and David made fruity flapjack.
Leo, Callum, Callum, Ryan and KeXin made vegetable pizza.
Amelia, Scarlette, Frankie, Dayne, Lewis and Jani made banana bread.
Lola, Keelie, Nyeema, Frankie-Dee, Shona and OIiver made blueberry muffins.
We followed the recipes carefully to make the food. We then made signs and set up our tables. We practised how much things would cost and how to give change if customers needed it. We also practised our selling and customer service skills!
The afternoon was a great success. Parents were very supportive and many spent a small fortune! All the people who came to our café were very impressed with our confident selling skills.
The very good news is that even though the café was mainly a celebration of our learning we also made just under £50! Thank you so much to all the parents and visitors who spent their money buying our healthy snacks. We are going to have a hard think about what to spend it on over Christmas and then have a vote in the new year. We will let you know what we choose. Well done Toucans!
Non-chronlogical reports
Today we finished making our leaflets (non-chronological reports) to give out at our Healthy Snack Café after school. We have worked very hard on them over the last three weeks; learning about non-chronological reports, planning, writing, editing, improving and finally publishing. We are very proud of them! Come along to our café if you would like one.
