Naughty or nice

Find out if you’ve been naughty or nice this year with our festive graphics project for kids!

In this Christmas STEM activity, students will use a net to make a naughty or nice gauge and customise it to their own design.

This activity could be used as a main lesson to teach learners how to use nets to make useable objects. It could also be used as one of several activities within a wider scheme of learning focusing on how maths can be utilised to understand the use of nets.

Activity: Naughty or nice

This activity is one of a series of free STEM resources designed to allow learners to use Christmas themes to support the teaching of the primary National Curriculum. They are designed to support the delivery of key topics within design and technology, and maths.

This resource involves using a net to make a Niceometer, showing whether students have been naughty or nice. Nets are important as they allow 3D objects to be made when folded.

If available, the handout should be printed on a thin card, as greater rigidity improves performance.

The printing on the front of the handout is for guidance. Learners can place their designs on what is currently the back if they prefer a blank surface; This allows the potential for more creative designs but may require the sequence to be changed if applying artwork by hand, with the cutting out done before the graphics are applied.

The graphics could be added by hand or using IT. The examples at the end of the presentation were made by learners using computers at home during a lesson delivered using conferencing software.

Resources required

• A4 paper or thin card for handouts
• Scissors
• Rulers
• Brass split pin fasteners
• Drawing and colouring equipment

The engineering context

Engineers use gauges to give visual displays of the amounts or levels of things. This can range from the volume control on a television to the fuel tank on a car to a temperature gauge on a machine.

Suggested learning outcomes

By the end of this activity, students will understand that gauges are used to measure things, and they will be able to make a graphic product by cutting and folding a net.

Download the free Naughty or nice activity sheet below!

All activity sheets and supporting resources are free to download, and all the documents are fully editable, so you can tailor them to your students’ and your schools’ needs.

The activity sheet includes teacher notes, guidance, useful web links, and links (where appropriate) to the national curriculum in each of the four devolved UK nations; England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Oh ho ho, and please do share your classroom highlights with us @IETeducation! #SantaLovesSTEM.