Dragon Designs Aut 2 2025
Dragon Designs
Autumn 2 2025
Design and Technology, English and History
Science and Art
Rationale:
After sharing the story of “The dragon and the Nibblesome Knight”, the children are inspired to help design and build a new castle for the dragons to live in. They will start by investigating the historical facts surrounding what features castles have, what they were used for and by who! Labelled diagrams will help to show their findings. Making a fabric toy dragon which the children can take home, will help them to recognise the needs of a dragon. They will use this experience and the facts they have found out about castles, to prepare a plan and design in small groups. They will test different ideas, make mock ups and choose which tools and materials are best to use. The children will write a letter, descriptions and poetry to accompany their designs. The project will culminate in a castle presentation for Year R where the children look at how the features work and match the dragon. They will learn and perform their poems.
Hook:
The children arrive in the classroom to discover a cardboard castle, a dragon and a book (The Dragon and the Nibblesome Knight). The last page of the book has a very special message just for Emerald Class! The children will share the book and discover the story of how the knight and the dragon become friends, so much so that the knight decides that the dragon needs a castle like his to live in. The children are set the task of building a castle for the dragon which has working parts and provides the dragon with a safe place to live. But what is a castle? How was it built? What was it used for?
Emerald class have been busy designing and creating their own fabric dragons! The children chose a dragon template and then carefully selected the colours they wanted to use. They then learnt how to sew to stitch their dragons together showing great focus and independence.
Our finished dragons!
Designing our castles - in groups we have begun to think about the design for our castles. We made a list of the things which make castles strong and started to make a sketch, labelling the different parts.
We made a mock up of our castle design using construction resources!
Making drawbridges! We practised making drawbridges by adding a mechanism to our structure. We made a mock up of the castle walls then added a lever drawbridge door and made it move attaching string to the wheels which turned when the axles turned!
