Welcome to Resourceful Mind! Through my extensive experience in teaching design, engineering, graphics, food and textiles, I've developed resources that make topics easy to understand. My materials include clear visuals, simple explanations, and engaging tasks to reinforce learning and support learners.
Welcome to Resourceful Mind! Through my extensive experience in teaching design, engineering, graphics, food and textiles, I've developed resources that make topics easy to understand. My materials include clear visuals, simple explanations, and engaging tasks to reinforce learning and support learners.
Here is a scheme of learning for a Design and Technology unit that aligns with the principles of the Curriculum for Wales. This Scheme of Learning (SOL) has been carefully crafted to be accessible for delivery by a non-specialist teacher in a general-purpose classroom over the course of a term. It provides a clear outline of the learning objectives, detailing the rationale behind the selected activities. Additionally, the scheme integrates essential skills, encourages critical thinking, and addresses common misconceptions. It includes prerequisite knowledge, comprehensive assessment rubrics, lesson overviews, and a curated list of key vocabulary to support both teaching and learning throughout the unit.
A selection of posters for your DT classroom.
Tools
Plastics
Metals
Wood
Jobs in DT
Famous designers/ engineers
DT vocabulary and Welsh words
All editable
A simple set of design and technology activities that could be used as emergency cover.
15 activities in total suitable for year 7 - year 10
I created these quickly as a teacher called in sick in the morning and needed some activities that students could work through independently without much instruction.
They are not perfect and done in a rush but they did they job!
I created this lesson for a non specialist to cover a DT lesson, can be used as a standalone or over a couple of lessons.
Lesson plan: Draw a living area using a grid and symbols:
Objective: Students will plan and draw a living area layout using a grid system and symbols to represent furniture and objects.
Materials Needed
Grid paper or drawing paper (a pre-drawn grid is available in slides will need to br printed out A3)
Pencils, erasers, rulers
Example floor plan diagrams for reference
Lesson Steps
Introduction (10 minutes)
Introduce the concept of floor planning and how architects and designers use grids and symbols to plan living spaces.
Show examples of floor plans and discuss
Symbols(10 minutes)
Introduce common symbols used in floor plans to represent furniture (e.g., beds, sofas, tables), doors, windows, and other objects (e.g., TV, plants).
Mini review
Grid Basics (10 minutes)
Explain the grid system and how each square on the grid represents a specific measurement (e.g., 1 square = 10cm).
Demonstrate how to measure and mark the grid using rulers and pencils.
Planning Phase (15 minutes)
Assign students to plan their living area layout on the grid paper.
Encourage them to consider scale, proportions, and functionality (e.g., placement of furniture for traffic flow).
Drawing Phase (20 minutes)
Once planning is complete, instruct students to start drawing their floor plan using symbols for furniture and objects.
Emphasize neatness, accuracy in scale, and clear labeling of symbols.
Extension activities
Review and Discussion (10 minutes):
Have students display their floor plans and discuss their design choices with classmates.
Encourage peer feedback on layout effectiveness and creativity.
Reflection (5 minutes):
Ask students to reflect on the challenges faced during the activity and what they learned about floor planning and design principles.
Challenge advanced students to incorporate additional elements such as color codes for different areas (e.g., living room, kitchen).
3 revision activities for GCSE product design covering Social and economic impact in product design, Smart Materials and standards and legislation.
Simple text and easy to hard questions to help them prepare for the exam. Could be printed off and left for cover work as well.
A lesson to guide students on how to answer the exam question on processes and the suitabililty of material used in the process to manufacture the product.
Processes
Materials
Properties
Example questions
I needed a cover Design and Technology lesson that was going to be taught by a Maths teacher so I created this. Hope its useful to someone else as well.
I have compiled a practice exam with answers to aid students in preparing for the WJEC product design and engineering exam. The questions are centered on the fundamental principles and concepts specified in the curriculum. The exam includes questions from the SAMs and previous papers, and I have created an editable document that can be printed and distributed to students.
Providing past papers and mock exams can help students to familiarize themselves with the format and style of the exam, as well as identify areas where they may need further study or practice. Encouraging students to practice with past papers and mock exams can also help to build their confidence and reduce anxiety around the exam.
1 to 2 lessons covering product design laws and legislation
Starter
Easy to follow info slides
5 tasks
Mini reviews
Exit card
2 Stretch 6 mark GCSE Style question activities
One of lesson explaining the effects of emerging technology.
The lesson helps students identify the positive and negative effects and the prepares them for GCSE exam questions.
The lesson contains exam style questions and explains how to access the low and high marks.
Contains
Starter
Main lesson
2 Tasks
Exam question mark breakdown
6 exam questions from 1 - 6 marks
Exit card
Follows on from emerging technology lesson on technology push, market pull and consumer choice.
Revision lesson to cover the surface finishes and treatments that are available to enhance functional and aesthetic qualities in materials.
Mini reviews
Video resources
Past paper questions and knowledge check tasks
Handouts
Introduction to plastics
What are they why we use them
What are their properties
Design a reuseable plastic product
kept it simple for year 7’s being taught by a non specialist. Avoided all the plastic term names like polyethylene etc and tried to make it engaging.
You could add plastic names to stretch higher ability pupils
Useful for that quick lesson you just don’t have the time to create
This is a 10 hour project I created for pupils who are isolating or working from home during the Covid pandemic.
The premis of the project is to consider how design can have a positive impact on others. Pupils are expected to complete the project through independent learning were teacher support is not available.
In this project pupils will consider how they can design a product for someone with arthritis. They will look at existing products, carry out some research, create designs on paper and through tinkercad. They will model their designs using home made playdough and create a final pitch.
The project is designed so that their is some guidance on what the pupils need to learn or be able to achieve, links to internet resources to help them complete tasks and upload or provide evidance.
I use Google classroom to provide pupils with their own copy but you may want to adapt if pupils require paper copies.
A 4 hour learning activity/project that encourages independent learning to meet set outcomes.
This activity was developed as a short project based learning activity to compliment the work that the pupils do in school.
There are 5 milestones for the pupils to complete using the resources provided to answer a driving question.
Driving Question
When making a product for someone how do you know which materials are the most suitable, which size of material to order and what the cost will be? How can you ensure you are not left out of pocket after charging the customer?
In the resource you will find an overview sheet and 5 suitable resource sheets to help pupils complete the desired outcomes.
Description of Project
Whether you are a builder, carpenter, roofer, painter you will always need to buy the materials you need to make a product. Sometimes you are making a product to sell or providing a service and you will not want to be out of pocket.
Whenever you plan to make a product at home or in work you will need to know how much material you will need to make the product. If you order too little or the wrong size you will not be able to make the product. If you order too much you will be left with waste and will end up costing you more.
Before you start to make, you should plan out the exact size and quantity of a material you need and which stock form you need to order to get the shapes you need. You should then budget your product to make sure you can afford to make it or too calculate the cost of the product to enable you to make a profit
Wooden Table
You have been approached by a customer to make this simple coffee table and has given you a budget of £100. Before you make it you will need to work out which material would be the most suitable, how much material you need, what stock form you need to order.
Then you will have to calculate how much it will cost to make to make sure it is profitable for you to make it within the budget. Man does not work for free!
A 4 hour learning activity/project that encourages independent learning to meet set outcomes.
This activity was developed as a short project based learning activity to compliment the work that the pupils do in school.
There are 3 milestones for the pupils to complete using the resources provided to answer a driving question.
Driving Question
How can we convince people to use eco-friendly products and reduce the impact they have on the planet?
Context
As a consumer you buy and throw away lots of products such as phones, pens, packaging. These products not only use lots of our resources but end up in landfills and cause pollution. We should all look to reduce our impact on the environment but as designers we should also consider how products impact the environment and look for ways to reduce that impact. Complete the milestones above to investigate the impact and how it can be reduced.
In the resource you will find an overview sheet and 4 suitable resource sheets to help pupils complete the desired outcomes.
In this lesson you will focus on the 4 main effects of an unhealthy diet.
Heart Disease
Diabetes
Tooth Decay and Obesity
This lesson follows on from the healthy eating guide, vitamins and minerals
to ferrous and non ferrous metals helping pupils understand the terms ferrous and non ferrous.
Lesson explains pure metals and alloys, the effect of moisture on ferrous and non ferrous metals and why different metals are used for similar products.
Lesson includes
Starter
Explination of ferrous and non ferrous
2 Mini reviews
Video
3 scaffolding tasks
Exit card