This week in Design and Technology, the Year 4 children took on an exciting challenge: experimenting with building a pavilion structure! 

A pavilion is a building that can often be found in a park or garden that usually has open sides.

Using cocktail sticks and playdough, the children worked in teams to construct miniature pavilion models. At first, many discovered that simply sticking pieces together wasn’t enough – their structures wobbled, broke or collapsed! This led to some brilliant discussions about strength, stability and shape.

The children experimented with different techniques:

Triangles for strength: Learning that triangular shapes make structures more rigid.

Balanced bases: Ensuring the foundation was wide and even.

Careful connections: Using playdough as joints to hold sticks firmly in place.

The classroom buzzed with creativity and problem-solving as the children tested, adapted and improved their designs. By the end of the session, we had a collection of impressive pavilion models – each unique, yet all demonstrating clever thinking and perseverance.

Well done, Year 4! Your pavilions are fantastic examples of design in action.