If you’ve found yourself on supply standing in front of a class and you’re filled with dread as they chant ‘we usually do DT today’ then this article is for you. Teaching a Design Technology lesson can be daunting for a non-specialist, even more so for when teaching on supply! This article is designed to give you a range of ideas for fun and easily accessible lessons linked to the DT curriculum that require minimal planning and only uses resources that would be available in any classroom.

STEM Spinning Tops

The children love this one. Firstly, work with them to mark out and draw a circle on card, then find and mark the centre. Cut it out and decorate the whole circle with a pattern. Encourage the children to plan the pattern, measure and draw accurately. Bright and contrasting colours work the best when decorating. Finally poke a pencil through the centre and spin! You could also use a coin instead of a pencil for a slightly different spinning effect. Throw in a bit of maths with radius/circumference/diameter, timing each other’s spinning tops, recording results in a graph. Or get all scientific and discuss forces, speed, distance and time.

Templates and further information available to download in the pdf which can be found here

Design A Board Game

All you need is paper, pencil and a ruler. Children can draw a start and finish point on their page and then create a path in between to play along. From a basic template children can then use their imagination to create a fun and exciting game to play. They can choose a theme such as favourite characters and stories or the themes can link to topics they are currently studying. Once the board is designed, they can make the characters to move around the board out of card, challenge them to solve the problem of how the character would stand up. If you need a jump start, there are templates available in the downloadable pdf which can be found here

Sustainable House Design

I find that most children are very aware of environmental issues in world today and how they can make little differences to create a positive impact. Whether it’s recycling, switching off lights or the use of solar and wind power, get the children thinking about how to solve environmental issues by designing a sustainable house. This can be a fantasy design using their imagination and creativity to come up with all sorts of weird and wacky ideas. This idea can also be extended into using cereal boxes to make a model of their house. This could incorporate science for example making wind propelled devices and testing them. If you need some inspiration templates and visuals are available to download as a pdf here.

Where next? There’s a great quick read here on supply with textile activities Check out our resources area here too.