Design and Technology

Introduction

My experience of "D & T" in school was of no more than just one term of Woodwork and one of Metalwork for an hour a week in the workshop at secondary school, and obviously that may or may not be totally practical for home educators (not many of us have workshops on the premises!) but those things are something I would hope to be able to look into doing at a later stage. As I recall, though, the topic of "design" was never discussed in those lessons at school, and it seems to me that a great deal of opportunity was missed by that omission.

For the early years, we've enjoyed "The Way Things Work" book, cd-rom and programmes.

It seems to me that a good starting point is to look at the designs all around us, discuss and evaluate them (in terms of practicality and aesthetics) and then to try our hand at designing for ourselves. A good way to do that might be to look at one type of design at a time:, I have put together the following list of themes, which I think will probably keep us going for a fair long time!

One thing we could do from early on is to make materials like wood available, so that the children become familiar with them and their properties.

Themes for Design & Technology

* Architecture: Houses, offices & public buildings, churches, windmills, etc.* Civil engineering: Bridges, aqueducts, viaducts, (town planning) * Furniture: seats, beds, tables, storage, kitchen, bathroom * Clothing & Soft furnishings * Engines, motors & machines: motor cars, trains, planes, buses, trams, defence: tanks, space: rockets, etc. Clockwork, radio, TV, video, computer, etc., tools, etc. * Household objects: cutlery, hoovers, etc., office equipment (e.g. paper clip!) * Interior design & decoration * Garden design & landscaping * Fabrics: use of/ design on * Materials: metal, wood, plastic, glass, building materials: brick, stone, mud, straw! * Graphic Design *
* Practicality v beauty *

Recommended Textbooks & Literature

The playgroups association, "pre-school learning alliance" also publish some really useful guides, one on woodworking in the early years, called "Wood Play" and another called "Technology through Play" at £2.75 each.

Suppliers

Take a look in your local library for books, both in the children's reference section and individual sections in the adult library.

As with art, the cost of materials and equipment (for putting designs into practice) can be prohibitive for home educating families on a one-income budget, so you might consider clubbing together with other home-ed families or doing D & T as part of a group..

Information/ Communication Technology