Year 1 Levers and Sliders

Date: 24th Jan 2024 @ 6:56pm

Today we began our DT journey and learnt about different mechanisms.

The first mechanism we created was a slider. We created a slider based around a scene from ‘The Gingerbread Man’, which enabled a character to move forwards and backwards to chase the main character. We learnt how we were going to make the mechanism safely, read through the instructions and took great care to carry out each step.

The next mechanism to master was a lever. For this mechanism we linked our learning to the story Jack and the Beanstalk. Again, we talked through the instructions as a class, following the prototype Miss Kay made and spotting her mistakes! We then had a turn at making the lever mechanism ourselves. We followed each instruction carefully and all successfully made a lever to show Jack and his beanstalk! We accurately measured specific lengths and cut all the parts correctly. We recapped on the importance of safety whilst using scissors and putting split pins through pieces of paper and card. We then discussed the key parts of the mechanism such as the arm and pivot.