Moving Toys

Turn your classroom into a toy workshop with this series of Moving Toys KS2 lessons for Year 5 as your class investigate cam mechanisms and toys that contain them. Discover how different shaped cams can alter the movement of the follower and how to create a sturdy structure using a variety of tools and techniques. Your toymakers will then have the chance to design, make and evaluate their own moving toy with a cam mechanism.

With easy-to-follow lesson plans, slideshows for each of the teaching inputs, differentiated activity ideas, worksheets and other printable resources, these Year 5 Moving Toys KS2 DT lessons provide everything you need to teach this fun and creative scheme of work...without the need for you to spend hours of your own time planning!

You might like our other Mechanisms and Mechanical Systems DT lessons too!

 

Cam Mechanisms

This Cam Mechanisms KS2 DT lesson gives your Year 5 children the chance to investigate different toys with cam mechanisms. They will learn that a cam mechanism is a linkage system which has a follower to convert rotary movement to linear movement, and explore different examples of these in moving toys.

During their independent learning activities, they will then have the chance to explore some toys with cam mechanisms for themselves.

This Cam Mechanisms KS2 lesson comes fully prepared and ready for you to deliver to your class. There's an easy-to-follow lesson plan, a slideshow for the teaching input, differentiated activity ideas, and a range of printable resources. There are also links to a number of website showing toys with cam mechanisms in case you can't source any for the children to look at first-hand.

View Lesson 1

Cam Shapes

Your Year 5 class will explore how cam shapes affect the linear movement of the follower in this hands-on lesson. The included slideshow presentation for the whole-class input challenges your class to think about how the shape and size of different cams might affect the movement of the follower, before showing your class how they can use a simple framework to test out their predictions.

They will then have the chance to try out different cam shapes for themselves by constructing the framework from the template given.

This ready-to-teach Cam Shapes lesson has a lesson plan with differentiated activity ideas, a slideshow for the teaching input, and a range of printable resources to support your Year 5 class as they explore cam shapes.

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Sturdy Structures

When your class come to design their own moving toy, they will need to create a structure that is strong enough the support the different components.

This lesson allows your class in investigate ways of creating structures and some of the different techniques that can be used to strengthen them.

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Designing Toys

Now that your class have investigated cam mechanisms and different structures, they can get on with the fun task of designing their own moving toy with a cam mechanism using the knowledge they have gathered.

The included slideshow presentation poses some key questions that your Year 5 class will need to consider for the design process. They will then use what they have learnt about cam mechanisms and creating sturdy structures to design their own moving toys.

This Designing Toys planning pack contains everything you need to deliver this lesson to your class, including a lesson plan, a slideshow, differentiated activity ideas and printable resources.

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Making Toys that Move

Your Year 5 class will have fun making moving toys in this lesson as they follow their designs to create a toy with a moving cam mechanism. The included slideshow presentation goes through some questions for the children to consider as a class before getting to the exciting task of bringing their moving toy designs to life.

This lesson comes with a detailed lesson plan, slideshow and differentiated activity ideas. Please note that due to the practical nature of this lesson, no printable resources are required and are therefore not included.

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Evaluation

The final lesson in this Moving Toys scheme of work gives your KS2 class the chance to reflect and evaluate the process of designing and making their own moving toy with a cam mechanism. They will also evaluate the quality of their finished products by identifying areas and strength and areas that could be improved upon.

This lesson contains an easy-to-follow lesson plan, a slideshow for the teaching input, differentiated activity ideas and various evaluation worksheets.

View Lesson 6

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