Design in the Junior School

Students begin their design journey with playful, tactile exploration. They engage in storytelling-inspired building, play with Beebot and Bluebot robots, explore sewing, and learn beginning food preparation. The emphasis in this grade is on empathy, fine motor skills, and joyful discovery.

• Building Empathy: In the Early Years, students are encouraged to think about their own wants and needs, as well as the wants and needs of familiar fictional characters, such as The Gingerbread Man. They gradually build understanding of why we create things as they learn to give kind and constructive feedback to each other. By engaging with fictional characters, students can begin to think about others while engaging their creativity and imagination. 
• STEM Connections: Students explore science concepts through culinary science and their exploration of materials’ properties. They explore technology concepts through robotics and early procedural thinking, engineering concepts through building, testing, and refining, and mathematics concepts through counting, measuring, sorting, and pattern-making.
• Highlighted Project: In their culinary science unit, Early Years students explore the roles and responsibilities we take in the kitchen by working together to explore how foods taste in different combinations and how foods react to different processes like mashing, stirring, and scooping. Students develop their agency by taking an active role in choosing the recipes and ingredients that they use.

In Senior Kindergarten, students begin to use design thinking to solve simple problems and respond to real needs. With each project, they grow in confidence and independence, designing for both function and feeling. Story-inspired challenges encourage them to think from others’ perspectives and express ideas in creative ways.

• Building Empathy: In Senior Kindergarten, students think increasingly about the wants and needs of people they know well, including themselves and their family members. Designing for fictional characters helps students apply their creative thinking to a range of contexts.
• STEM Connections: Students explore scientific concepts through culinary science and properties of materials, technology concepts through robotics and directional coding, engineering concepts through building, testing, refining, and learning about simple machines, and mathematics concepts through measuring, counting, and use of shapes.
• Highlighted Project: In their homeroom classes, students explore homes around the world and what makes a home. In their integrated design classes, we explore how homes are created in different environments and with different materials, culminating in students planning and building a prototype of a home for a fictional character.

Grade 1 students begin applying design thinking to imaginative and practical challenges. They learn that design is more than making—it’s a way to understand others and improve the world around them. Through storytelling, coding, textiles, and culinary science, students practice planning, testing, and refining their ideas. 

• Building Empathy: Students design for themselves and others (both fictional and real) and begin to explore the concept of creating something wholly for another person independent of their own preferences. 
• STEM Connections: We explore science and chemistry through chemical and physical reactions, technology by coding robots and creating an online coding project, engineering by exploring how parts work together to create a functioning whole, and mathematics concepts through measuring, tallying, adding, and shapes.
• Highlighted Project: In their homeroom classes, students learn about the states of matter, as well as physical and chemical changes. In their integrated design classes, we explore the physical and chemical changes that take place when baking and the effects of different ingredients on the whole cookie. This project culminates in students interviewing and creating a cookie recipe for a friend and then testing and refining it to meet their partner’s needs and wants.

With growing skill and independence, Grade 2 students embrace the design cycle to identify problems and test thoughtful solutions. They consider user needs in every project and begin to see themselves as real-world designers who create with purpose.  

• Building Empathy: Students think outside of themselves to create products for people close to them, whether that be family members or classmates. Grade 2 students develop their active listening and interview skills to create thoughtful project briefs.
• STEM Connections: In Grade 2, we explore science through culinary science, engineering through product design, ergonomics, and product testing, and mathematics through measuring, 3D shapes, and multiplication. Grade 2 design has a large focus on technology as students explore and develop coding and robotics skills throughout the year in preparation for Grade 3 and the Upper Junior School.
• Highlighted Project: Students develop their empathy and interview skills in order to create a bag for a friend. They engage in the full design cycle, from creating success criteria, to ideation, to product testing, and then repeat that process again to make refinements and adjustments according to their client’s feedback. Students explore the concepts of building and textiles, as well as how a variety of materials and techniques interact.

Grade 3 students use design thinking to explore real world needs and apply cross-disciplinary knowledge. As they enter the Upper Junior School, they gain increasing independence and agency over their projects and begin to develop their project management skills. Through empathy mapping, testing, and feedback, they refine their solutions and strengthen their voice as creative problem-solvers.

• Building Empathy: Students begin thinking about broader categories of people and design for groups in addition to specific individuals. In addition, students learn to consider not only the people, but their situations when designing.
• STEM Connections: Grade 3 students explore environmental science, forces and physical science, and culinary science. We explore the strength and flexibility of structures as students build, test, and refine their engineering creations. Students authentically connect mathematical concepts such as measuring, multiplying, and using fractions in multiple contexts. In Grade 3, students greatly expand their technological capabilities by learning about textile technologies, such as sewing machines, build and code their own Vex Go robot, learn about electricity and circuits, and explore concepts of graphic design and 3D modeling.
• Highlighted Project: Students step into the shoes of architects and structural engineers as they create a house for a fictional family living in an environment that experiences extreme weather. From floods to tornadoes, students must consider the unique needs of their environment as well as the needs and wants of their clients to build a structure that satisfies all. Students must also consider the real environmental impact of their prototyping materials and refine their projects to be both elegant and strong.

At this stage, students dive deeper into defining success and measuring the impact of their work. They use design to express ideas, test concepts, and solve problems that matter to them and their communities. Students take increasing ownership over their time and project management as they prepare for self-guided projects in Grade 5.

• Building Empathy: In Grade 4, students continue to develop their ability to design for a range of users, including those that are different from them. Students also develop their ability to design for groups that include people with a variety of needs and wants (such as ‘third graders’).
• STEM Connections: Students explore science through culinary science investigations into cooking as well as the transformation of energy into different forms. Grade 4 students explore technology through their work with 3D modeling, circuitry, coding, robotics, graphic design, and ancient weaving technologies. To develop engineering skills, students explore structures and the strengths and weaknesses of various materials, and to develop mathematical skills, students use precise measurements, coordinate planes, and basic operations embedded within their projects to put the theory learned in class into practice.
• Highlighted Project: In their homeroom classes, students explore energy and all the different forms it can take. In Design class, we explore electrical energy in-depth and create simple circuit games with a purpose. Students practice combining electrical components and physical construction while engaging in continuous testing and refinement to adjust the projects’ difficulty.

Grade 5 students apply design as a powerful thinking tool. With increasing autonomy, they identify meaningful challenges, generate solutions, and advocate for causes they care about. Their design work blends creativity, critical thinking, and technical skills, readying them for the next stage in their learning journey as they enter into Middle School and the MYP.

• Building Empathy: Students get the opportunity to increasingly choose their own users, whether that be themselves, someone they know well, or someone they do not know. As students explore the contexts of their projects, they combine what they already know with their ideas about a product’s potential to identify an appropriate user or client. Students are encouraged to go beyond the surface to take on the perspective of the person or people for whom they are designing. 
• STEM Connections: Students explore the science of both cooking and baking in culinary science, as well as environmental science as they explore the connections between people, technology, and the environment. Grade 5 students explore 3D modeling, graphic design, coding, robotics, and textile technologies with increasing complexity. We engage with engineering concepts through building, testing, iteration, and suitability of materials for products. Mathematics are naturally woven throughout students’ projects so that they apply concepts like measuring, binary coding, multiplication, and division in authentic contexts. 
• Highlighted Projects: In Grade 5, students combine their knowledge of multiple subjects into one project. Students use their knowledge of cardboard prototyping and building to create a creature out of cardboard, fabrics, and/or recycled materials. Then, they use Microbit electronics to create code that will make it move. Finally, they use their knowledge of electronics and circuits to create the physical components that will bring their creature to life!