Resources: Pencils and coloured pencils to design toys. Optional: teachers may ask children to make their toy designs, which will require further resourcing.
Support Handout (1): The handout provides two design boxes for the children to draw a toy from the past and present. A word bank is provided to support labelling each image.
Core Handout (2): The handout provides two design boxes with space for children to write sentences.
Challenge Handout (4): The handout provides space for the children to evaluate if toys are better today.
Use the starter slide to sort the toys into past or present. Encourage the children to explain their answers.
Using the presentation, recap with the children the learning so far, focusing on whether toys are better in the present day or in the past. Assess the children's understanding of how toys have changed and why.
Ask the children to design or make two toys: one toy that would be used in the past, and another toy used in the present. Encourage the children to think about the materials they would use, their functionality and how children would play with them.
Challenge Task:
Ask the children to evaluate and write an answer to the question ‘Are toys better today?’.
Play a ‘thumbs up, thumbs down’ quiz with questions similar to:
Toys have been around for thousands of years and have changed a lot over time. Long ago, children played with simple toys made from natural materials like sticks, stones, and clay. In the 1800s and early 1900s, toys such as wooden dolls, tin soldiers, and clockwork cars became popular, often handmade by craftsmen. As factories developed, toys could be made more quickly and cheaply, allowing more children to have them. By the mid-1900s, plastic became the main material, leading to bright, colourful toys like building blocks, dolls, and action figures. Today, many toys include batteries, electronics, and even computer technology, such as video games and interactive robots. Over time, toys have become more complex, but their purpose has always stayed the same, to bring fun, creativity, and learning to children.
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