Carousel Education provides high quality bespoke support that addresses current educational challenges and practices. Our vision is to enable school leaders and staff to provide the best possible outcomes for all their children. In addition to our resources, we aim to offer down to earth, interactive, innovative and practical solutions for school leaders.
Carousel Education provides high quality bespoke support that addresses current educational challenges and practices. Our vision is to enable school leaders and staff to provide the best possible outcomes for all their children. In addition to our resources, we aim to offer down to earth, interactive, innovative and practical solutions for school leaders.
In this unit of work children design and make a working model of a fairground ride that uses rotational movement and is driven by a pulley system. Applying their understanding of computer programming they use block code to control the movement and functioning of the fairground model. Using their experiences of visiting fairgrounds and theme parks and watching an animation of a theme park, children deepen their understanding of the different movements of fairground rides and how they can be themed as part of the experience. They learn how a pulley and drive belt system works and how they can be used to transfer movement, change the speed and direction of movement. Children design a fairground ride model that uses rotational movement and make a wooden box structure for their model before adding a pulley and drive belt system. They use a Crumble Kit motor as part of an electrical system and apply their knowledge of block coding to control the speed and direction of the motor. Using their designs for guidance, children decorate the fairground model. For the evaluation part of this unit of work children evaluate the overall project and the processes they undertook to create the fairground model.
This knowledge, skills and understanding is delivered through the following six sessions:
IDEA Task 1: Investigating Fairground Rides & IDEA Task 2: Investigating Pulley Systems
Focused Practical Task 1 – Making a Base for the Model
Focused Practical Task 2 – Fairground Ride Designer
Group Designing Session IDEA Task 3: Electric Motors and Computer Control
Making the Model
Evaluating the Project
In this unit of work children extend their knowledge of food preparation by designing and making a healthy rainbow salad of five fruits and vegetables. This unit provides an opportunity for children to consolidate their food cutting skills and to extend these skills to include grating and juicing fruit and vegetables. Children begin by taste testing some salads that can be bought in the local supermarket before going on to create their own healthy salad product. They learn the key healthy eating message of eating five portions of fruit and vegetables daily and choosing these from a rainbow of colours. They learn how adding additional ingredients and a dressing can improve the taste of their salads. They complete this project by designing simple packaging and labelling for the rainbow salad product they have made.
This knowledge, skills and understanding is delivered through the following six sessions:
IDEA Task 1: Supermarket Salads
Focused Practical Task 1: Carrot Salad
Focused Practical Task 2: Designing Salads for Your Friends
Designing Salads
Making and Evaluating Salad
Design and Make a Packaging Box for the Salad
In this unit of work children extend their knowledge of food preparation by designing and making a healthy salad for the King’s lunch. This unit provides an opportunity for children to consolidate their food cutting skills and to extend these skills to include grating and juicing fruit and vegetables. For the design and make activity children learn about the commonwealth and how different countries around the world grow different types of fruit and vegetables. Children design a salad using different fruit and vegetables that are grown in commonwealth countries.
This knowledge, skills and understanding is delivered through the following six sessions:
IDEA Task 1: Supermarket Salads
Focused Practical Task 1: Carrot Salad
Focused Practical Task 2: Designing Salads for Your Friends
Designing Session: Designing Salads for Your King
Making and Evaluating Salads
Design and Make a Packaging Box for the Royal Salad
In this unit of work children learn about wheels and axles and how these are used to make a moving vehicle. They begin by investigating to vehicles to see how they work. They then learn about the invention of the wheel and its impact on ancient civilisations. Children are taught woodworking skills to create a simple wooden frame that is used as the chassis for their vehicle. Children bring in a soft toy from home and design a vehicle for the toy to take part in a class race across the classroom.
This knowledge, skills and understanding is delivered through the following six sessions:
IDEA Task 1: Investigating Toy Cars
Focused Practical Task 1: Working with Wood & IDEA Task 2: Wheels all Around
Design and Make Session 1 – Designing the Toy Buggy
Design and Make Session 2 – Making the Toy Buggy
Design and Make Session 3 – Decorating the Toy Buggy
Evaluation Session
In this unit of work children learn about shell structures and how different three-dimensional containers can be joined together to form a desk tidy. Children apply their knowledge of creating shell structures, computer-aided design, and recycling practices to create a desk tidy for themselves to use at home or at school. They learn how papier mâché techniques of adding layers can be used to stiffen and strengthen shell structures. Using a range of recycled materials, children create a desk tidy product and use a range of decorative techniques to create a quality product. Children learn how to use posters and how the functions of products can be used to market and advertise a product.
This knowledge, skills and understanding is delivered through the following six sessions:
IDEA Task 1: What is a Desk Tidy? & Focused Practical Task 1: Making Shell Structures
IDEA Task 2: What are shell structures? & Focused Practical Task 2: Paper Mâché Structures
Focused Practical Task 3: Introducing Computer-Aided Design
Designing Using Computer-Aided Design
Making the Desk Tidy
Evaluation Session
In this unit children extend their knowledge and understanding of mechanical systems by learning about pneumatic systems. They apply this knowledge to create a rainforest monster toy with a pneumatic moving mouth. They begin by learning about how air creates movement in a pneumatic system. Using this knowledge in a focused practical task, they create a simple pneumatic toy based on the story of the wide mouth frog. They further extend their knowledge of pneumatic systems using connected syringes to understand how pneumatic systems can change the direction and amount of movement in a system. They apply this knowledge to design and make a toy based on a rainforest animal. The toy uses a pneumatic system to control the opening and closing of its mouth.
Automaton Toymaker is a Design Technology unit of work aimed primarily at children aged 9-11. The unit focuses on designing and making an automaton toy using a cam mechanism.
Design Brief: Design and make an automaton toy for the local toy museum
The package provides the medium-term plan, six lessons (each lesson has a MS Powerpoint presentation). Any additional resources are provided as PDFs or as Powerpoint Presentations. This unit of work fulfils the National Curriculum (England) Design Technology requirements for this age group in the following strands of learning:
• Mechanical Systems
• Materials
• Structures
In this project, children apply their knowledge of mechanisms and in particular cam mechanisms, to design and make an automaton toy. They learn about the key features of an automaton and will use this knowledge when designing and making their own product. They learn how cams can change movement in a mechanical system. When creating their toy, they design the automaton character and decide the movement it will make, selecting the appropriate cam mechanism to produce this movement. They make a wooden box structure for their automaton before adding the cam mechanism and the character. Children decorate the automaton to create a scene for the automaton character. They evaluate their finished product against the design brief and design specifications. Finally, they consider improvements they would make to their product and design a Mark II version of their automaton toy.
In this unit of work children design and make a fruit smoothie for a friend. Children learn the names of a range of fruit and investigate where fruit can be bought locally. Children learn how to cut and prepare a range of fruits. Through tasting apples, they begin to develop their taste vocabulary. This vocabulary is extended through more taste tests where the children are taught how to cut fruit using the bridge hold and the claw grip. Children are taught key healthy eating messages including eating five portions of fruit and vegetables every day, drinking lots of water and cutting down sugary foods. Having designed and made their fruit smoothie they evaluate their product, and their friend also evaluates the smoothie. As part of the evaluation children begin to investigate food packaging and use this knowledge to design a container for their smoothie.
In this unit of work children design and make a fruit salad based on the story of Handa’s Surprise written by Eileen Browne. Children learn the names of a range of fruit and investigate where fruit can be bought locally. Children learn how to cut and prepare a range of fruits. Through tasting apples, they begin to develop their taste vocabulary. This vocabulary is extended through more taste tests where the children are taught how to cut fruit using the bridge hold and the claw grip. Children are taught key healthy eating messages including eating five portions of fruit and vegetables every day, drinking lots of water and cutting down sugary foods. Having designed and made their fruit salad they evaluate their product and the products of other children repeating using a taste test. As part of the evaluation, they write a letter from Akeyo to Handa thanking her for the gift and saying what they liked about the fruit salad.
In this unit of work children design and make a fruit kebab based on the story of Handa’s Surprise written by Eileen Browne. Children learn the names of a range of fruit and investigate where fruit can be bought locally. Children learn how to cut and prepare a range of fruits. Through tasting apples, they begin to develop their taste vocabulary. This vocabulary is extended through more taste tests where the children are taught how to cut fruit using the bridge hold and the claw grip. Children are taught key healthy eating messages including eating five portions of fruit and vegetables every day, drinking lots of water and cutting down sugary foods. Having designed and made their fruit kebab they evaluate their product and the products of other children repeating using a taste test. As part of the evaluation, they write a letter from Akeyo to Handa thanking her for the gift and saying what they liked about the fruit kebab.
In this unit of work, children apply their knowledge and understanding about healthy eating to design and make Mexican-inspired tacos based on the key messages from the Eatwell Guide for healthy eating. Children begin by discussing the different ways that we can eat food at home and outside the home. They conduct market research into their favourite take-away foods. They consolidate their understanding of how designers use mood boards when creating their products. In learning how to make a tortilla and a filling they acquire the essential skills and knowledge needed to make a taco. They consolidate their understanding of the different food groups on the Eatwell Guide to healthy eating and use this knowledge to design a taco that promotes the Eatwell Guide. As part of this unit, they begin to understand the danger of eating too much take-away food and how people make dietary choices and vegetarian and vegan diets. Having designed and made their taco product they become entrepreneurs and set up their own small business learning business basics, marketing and budgeting.
In this unit of work children using Crumble Kit components to design and make a night light that is controlled by a microcontroller and is activated when it gets dark.
Children learn about all the different ways in which lights are used in the home and they understand that a product such as a lamp can bee broken down into its component parts. As part of their learning, they re-activate their knowledge of using simple circuits to make a bulb light up. They learn about the purpose of nightlights and about their inventor – Abe Donsky. As part of this learning sequence, children can also learn about Thomas Edision.
Children are then taught about the different components of Crumble Kit and how they are controlled using block coding language. Children then apply they learnt knowledge and understanding to create nightlight that lights up when it gets dark using a light sensor to monitor the environment. The nightlight shade is made of recycled plastic and this needs to be considered when designing the nightlight.
Arty Cushions is a Design Technology unit of work aimed primarily at children aged 7-11. The unit focuses on creating a three-dimensional fabric product using a range of textile skills.
Design Brief: Design and make a decorative cushion to be sold in the local art gallery shop.
The package provides the medium-term plan, six lessons (each lesson has a MS Powerpoint presentation). Any additional resources are provided as PDFs or as Powerpoint Presentations. This unit of work fulfils the National Curriculum (England) Design Technology requirements for this age group in the following strands of learning:
• Materials/Textiles
In this unit of work:
Children join textile pieces to create both a cushion and a cushion cover. They are introduced to the technique of creating a seam allowance and build on their knowledge of sewing and decorative techniques.
They design and decorate their cover based on a famous and iconic work of art understanding that the cushion is being made as a sample for a client. They evaluate their cushion product by creating a page for an online shopping website.
This unit of work is part of the Primary Design Technology Scheme of Work for children aged 5-11 being developed on behalf of Carousel Education.
Sharing Bread is a Design Technology unit of work aimed primarily at children aged 7-9. The unit focuses on children designing and making bread that can be shared as part of a meal.
Design Brief: Design and make a unique bread product to share with friends.
The package provides the medium-term plan, six lessons (each lesson has a MS Powerpoint presentation). Any additional resources are provided as PDFs or as Powerpoint Presentations. This unit of work fulfils the National Curriculum (England) Design Technology requirements for this age group in the following strands of learning:
• Cooking and Nutrition
In this unit of work:
Children will investigate a range of bread products from around the world. They will learn a basic bread recipe and using this knowledge will adapt this recipe to create their own authentic bread product that has been designed and made by them. In this unit they will learn that additional ingredients can be added to the bread to create a unique recipe. They will learn how to shape the bread to make it easier for tearing and sharing. They conduct a taste test to evaluate their bread and also develop packaging for their bread product.
This unit of work is part of the Primary Design Technology Scheme of Work for children aged 5-11 being developed on behalf of Carousel Education.
Cereal Snack Bar is a Design Technology unit of work aimed primarily at children aged 7-9. The unit focuses on children designing and making healthy cereal bars and also understanding the importance of eating breakfast regularly.
Design Brief: Design and Make a Healthy Cereal Snack Bar
The package provides the medium-term plan, six lessons (each lesson has a MS Powerpoint presentation). Any additional resources are provided as PDFs or as Powerpoint Presentations. This unit of work fulfills the National Curriculum (England) Design Technology requirements for this age group in the following strands of learning:
• Cooking and Nutrition
In this unit of work:
Children create their own recipe, branding, and packaging for a cereal bar for a healthy snack. This unit of work also includes learning about the importance of breakfast. Children build on their knowledge of healthy eating and preparing fruit and vegetables to develop their own design for a healthy breakfast cereal bar. As part of their learning they understand the importance of market research and conducting surveys.
This unit of work is part of the Primary Design Technology Scheme of Work for children aged 5-11 being developed on behalf of Carousel Education.
Puppets is a Design Technology unit of work aimed primarily at children aged 5-7. The unit focuses on creating puppets using textiles and sewing techniques.
Design Brief: Design and make a hand puppet based on a character from a fiction book in the library.
The package provides the medium-term plan, six lessons (each lesson has a MS Powerpoint presentation). Any additional resources are provided as PDFs or as Powerpoint Presentations. This unit of work fulfils the National Curriculum (England) Design Technology requirements for this age group in the following strands of learning:
• Materials/Textiles
In this unit of work:
Children make a hand puppet by marking out, cutting, and joining pieces of fabric together to create a character from a story book. Children learn about puppets and discuss what makes a good puppet – this is an introduction to design specifications. They design a hand puppet based on a story book character and learn how to use a simple puppet template pattern to create their puppet. Using their design they decorate their puppet to resemble the book character.
This unit of work is part of the Primary Design Technology Scheme of Work for children aged 5-11 being developed on behalf of Carousel Education.
Street Food Fiesta is a Design Technology unit of work aimed primarily at children aged 9-11. The unit focuses on designing and making a street food product and developing children’s knowledge of being a young entrepreneur.
Design Brief: To design and make a healthy food product suitable for the Street Food Festival
The package provides the medium-term plan, six lessons (each lesson has a MS Powerpoint presentation). Any additional resources are provided as PDFs or as Powerpoint Presentations. This unit of work fulfils the National Curriculum (England) Design Technology requirements for this age group in the following strands of learning:
• Cooking and Nutrition
In this unit of work:
Children set up a small food business to create and sell a sweet or savoury food product at the school Street Food Festival. They learn about street food around the world, design their own street food and learn some of the fundamentals of entrepreneurship when creating their own small business.
This unit of work is part of the Primary Design Technology Scheme of Work for children aged 5-11 being developed on behalf of Carousel Education.
Eatwell Pizza is a Design Technology unit of work aimed primarily at children aged 9-11. The unit focuses on designing and making pizza and setting up a small business as a pizza entrepreneur.
Design Brief: Design and make a pizza to promote the healthy eating messages from the Eatwell Guide for Healthy Eating
The package provides the medium-term plan, six lessons (each lesson has a MS Powerpoint presentation). Any additional resources are provided as PDFs or as Powerpoint Presentations. This unit of work fulfils the National Curriculum (England) Design Technology requirements for this age group in the following strands of learning:
• Cooking and Nutrition
In this unit of work:
Children apply their knowledge and understanding about healthy eating to design and make a pizza based on the key messages from the Eatwell Guide for healthy eating. They learn how to make bread dough to be used as the pizza base and prepare a range of vegetables and other foods to create the tomato sauce and pizza toppings. Through this they understand that food products are made by adapting existing recipes. In setting up a small business they learn about creating a company branding, budgeting and the importance of packaging and labelling food products.
This unit of work is part of the Primary Design Technology Scheme of Work for children aged 5-11 being developed on behalf of Carousel Education.