Engineering with Playdough | Kitchen Lab 4 Kids

Creative Preschool Engineering with Playdough

Type of resource: Website

Web address https://kidssteamlab.com/preschool-engineering-with-playdough/

Supporting video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3THbmWmtRfA

Language: English

Description

Creative Early Years Engineering with Playdough and Pasta

Scientific concept introduced

Designing and Making

Creative and critical thinking

Critical Thinking:

– Analysis

– Inductive reasoning

Creative Thinking:

– Imagining

– Designing

– Making

Mathematical reasoning

Problem solving with 3D shapes

Spatial Awareness

Reasoning

Measuring

Counting

Scientific thinking

– Questioning
– Estimating and measuring
– Predicting
– Exploring
– Planning
– Decision Making
– Making
– Evaluating
– Recording

Learning how to learn

– Self-efficacy in learning
– Fun in learning
– Learning collaboratively
– Problem solving

Additional

– Oral language – listening and following instructions
– Hand-eye coordination
– Fine motor skills
– Collaborative skills through group Work

Creative Preschool Engineering with Playdough

Overall aims

● to enable pupils to explore skills involved in designing and making (engineering skills) with pasta and playdough
● to develop pupils’ skills in listening and following instructions
● to develop pupils’ skills in estimating, measuring and problem solving with shapes
● to develop pupils’ skills in turn-taking
● to develop pupils’ creative thinking skills such as imagining and designing
● to develop pupils’ skills in self-assessment

Vocabulary – keywords should be understood

Pasta, playdough, smooth, hard, round, soft, building, monument, shape, tall, small,
high, low, wide, narrow, thick, thin, square, rectangle, triangle, circle

Expected learning outcomes (operational aims)

The child will be enabled to:

– follow instructions
– use the vocabulary of shape and space to describe structures
– explore their materials – pasta and playdough
– build simple structures (through free-play and guided) using pasta and playdough
– talk about their work – the process of construction and the final structure created
– work together in small groups

STEM skills – to which the learning unit is related to

CORE STEM SKILLS

Questioning
Estimating
Problem solving with shapes
Spatial awareness
Reasoning
Counting
Measuring
Predicting
Exploring

Planning
Decision Making
Imagining
Designing
Making
Evaluating
Recording

ADDITIONAL SKILLS

Hand-eye coordination
Fine-motor skills
Writing
Drawing
Oral Language
Group work – collaborative skills
Self-efficacy in learning

Teaching methodologies/activity outline

Introduction:

(Ask pupils to work in groups).

Materials: (per group)

Playdough (enough for each group, ideally with different colours)
Uncooked pasta (use 3 different types e.g. spaghetti, fusilli, penne, rigatoni, farfalle.)
Large sheet of paper

Assign pupils to work in groups of 4, giving each group a set of materials.
Ask pupils to ‘Pass the Pasta’, taking turns to pass the different types of pasta around the group and to describe how each type of pasta looks and feels.
Then ask each pupil to take some playdough and compare it to the pasta in how it looks and feels.
Inform pupils that they’re going to be using playdough and pasta to do some building challenges.
Ask pupils what ‘to build’ means – elicit that this means putting materials together to make a building (structure), like a building or a monument.

Activity:

Ask pupils, in their groups, to list (draw) on their page, as many buildings (structures) as they can think of, for example, a house, a school, a tree house, a castle, an igloo, a farm barn, a skyscraper, a pyramid, the spire in Dublin, the Eiffel tower, the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Use a mind map to discuss these in terms of space and shapes, for example, tall, small, high, low, wide, narrow, thick, thin, square, rectangle, triangle.
Ask pupils to discuss how building a castle might differ from building a house.
In groups, first give pupils a few minutes for free play with the materials. Ask pupils to think about which type of pasta would be good to build different types of structure, for example, tall, small, wide, narrow.
Then ask pupils to complete different building challenges (problems), using their pasta and playdough, for example:
– Build a tall structure – can you make it taller without it falling down?
– Build a wide structure – how could you make it narrower?
– Build a bridge – how can you make it wide/taller?
(Guide children as necessary in estimating and measuring.)
Take time to discuss how pupils tackled each of the challenges, for example, noting which types of pasta worked best on particular challenges; counting how much pasta they used; what types of pasta was used; what worked best, what didn’t work well.
Finally ask each group each to work together to plan (draw a rough draft) and then build a structure, giving pupils some parameters, for example, it must include:
– An opening (a door, window)
– More than two levels
– A circular shape
– A step

Conclusion

Ask each group to present their Pasta and Playdough structure to the class – discussing the materials used; why they used certain pasta; and how they assembled the structure.
Ask groups to discuss what was best about their structure, as well as how they would improve it the next time.
Ask pupils, working individually, to draw a picture of their group’s structure. How did it compare to the group’s plan?

Assessment of learning

Pupil observation sheet, photo of each group’s structure.

Equipment and materials to be used in learning unit (tools, ingredients etc)

Playdough (enough for each group, ideally with different colours)
Uncooked pasta (use 3 different types for comparison e.g. spaghetti, fusilli, penne, rigatoni, farfalle.
Large sheet of paper