In this activity you either give a group a design problem (add it to the sheet) or they generate their own design problem. They then have to use the material cards for a variety of smart materials and technical textiles, to solve the problem and justify why on the sheet. The students must draw and annotate their garment design and outline which materials are smart and which are technical. I have used this lesson with Y7 and Y10, but changed it slightly. You can easily differentiate it by coming up with harder or easier design problems. Stress their is no wrong answer if they can justify which properties they want to help solve the problem.

Attached is a PowerPoint with information and activities, also worksheets and a mini test/ answers are included. AQA Fashion and Textiles A level content, but could be adapted easily.

Print out onto A3 paper. A great starter when you are teaching the sewing machine or refreshing knowledge with older students. A machine with numbers is on one page and then the labels to match are on another.

A small puzzle (17 questions) with key words from the core section of DT. Market pull/ Technology push/ automation/ Energy generation/ virtual marketing/ cooperative/ crowd funding/ Culture/ Sustainability/ Fairtrade A good starter/ revision material. 2 pages of a word document

My KS3 classes love this starter! Each card has two sides and match to another side of a card, when finished it makes a circle. I get groups to race each other to finish.

A triangle card match up. I use these as starters for GCSE students, can be extended. At the moment the triangles are numbered and colour coded - this is only to help you add the questions and answers in. On a word document, two sheets.