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Principle 3 - Vignettes: Early Years - Inventions

Back to Principle 3 - Vignettes: Early Years

Example

Inventions

Pam’s Year 2/3 class is fascinated with an old meat mincer a child has bought to school. They spend considerable time trying to work out how it works and what it was used for. Pam uses this interest to develop a unit of work around inventions. She displays additional inventions including cooking tools, farm implements; and older style household appliances and gives students time to investigate and play with them. They hypothesise, What might it have been used for? How does it work? What materials have been used? How might the work have been done before this was invented? The children draw and write various scenarios. Pam poses questions about ‘What is the most useful invention in your house?’ ‘What invention do you like the best and why?’ The students brainstorm possible questions for a survey. They discuss what makes a good survey; identify the characteristics of useful questions (Do we want yes/no answers or answers that expand on the topic?) and suggest ways to record answers. The students undertake the survey and collect responses. Pam supports small groups of students to collate and present results in different ways (a graph, as raw data etc). She leads a whole group discussion about interpreting results, making generalisations, looking for patterns in the results, and considering age and gender as variables. The students work in groups of 3-4 to develop an idea for an invention and design a prototype. They share ideas, getting individual or group feedback to improve the design, prepare a patent for their invention and design an advertisement to show their invention to their peers.