Making Toys Workshop

Toys and forces

You can work with the children exploring how each of the toys work in our making toys workshop. This will vary on the age of your children but it will probably include push….pull….gravity…., and for the slightly older pupil this could include friction….. and how levers work.

History

From Egyptian to modern. Each toy has its own history and when you click on each of the images on our examples page you will be taken to a dedicated page for that toy. Here you will find some of its history and where it sits on the timeline.

You and your children may be content with this level of information but it may just be a platform for you to delve deeper and extend the project.

This can be adjusted to suit your circumstances on a day to day basis.

Sanding

All the toys need some smoothing. The video that is on the accompanying powerpoint presentation (on the usb which is part of the kit) will show what sand paper (abrasive material) is and how it can change the material they are working on.

Drilling

Normally each toy requires at least one hole drilling. We have done this for you now but will return to this practice once we can come back in to schools.

Design

There are examples of the finished toy on the powerpoint so that each pupil can create a design for their own toy.

Normally we only have a 2 hour window to complete all aspects of the making toys workshop but you now have the opportunity to take a little more time over this.

Perhaps a starting point could be to create a character and the start of a story about their toy. Once it starts to have a story then the designing can begin.

The children could trace around the individual pieces of their toy and then practise a number of alternatives before transferring their design to the wooden toy.

Colour

Acrylic crayons are ideal on the wood but feel free to experiment.

You will find that felt tip pens have a habit of bleeding in to the wood and might be avoided.

Assembling

This is normally done one on one with ourselves, but we have put together videos and instruction sheets so that teachers can do this with the children. Obviously, if you are social distancing, this may not be possible but now is the opportunity to get the parents involved. Once the children have completed the design and colouring, why not let them take the pieces home and the parents help them assemble. We have posted all the instructions on our web pages with this in mind.