Ship-building in Elm

In Design & Technology in Year 5 this half term, the children are designing and making Viking longships! The first lesson was spent finding out about what the ships looked like, what materials they used and the features they needed to include, such as figure-heads. Figure-heads, which are at the front of the boat, were made to look like fierce creatures and were rumoured to scare off evil spirits.

In the second lesson the children were able to experiment with a range of materials, including card, foil, plastic bottles and burger boxes to come up with a prototype for the base of their ships. Once they had created this prototype they were able to test it on water to see if it would float! 

Keep an eye out for the next stages of the boat-building process - the mast, oars and sail - in the next few weeks!