Inventions

Objective & content

This sheet on inventions starts from a class visit to the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester: Mrs Carter, the guide, tells Leo, a Year 9 pupil, how steam engines, cotton factories and the first railway between two cities for passengers changed life in the industrial revolution, and how the telephone and the light bulb came after. Pupils learn to talk about inventions and how life changed with them. They answer six multiple-choice questions, name six pictures from a box of eight words, match eight words such as inventor, steam and coal with their meanings, complete seven sentences and make nouns with -ion (invent, invention). The sheet ends on a crossword with ten clues from the tour.

Pedagogical guide

The tour carries the words of the topic, so pupils meet each one in context before working on it. It shows both sides of the period: the inventions made journeys and work faster, but the factories were noisy and dangerous and children worked twelve hours a day, until new laws sent them to school. The tasks go from recognising words to using them: pictures, meanings, sentences, then word forms. The -ion task asks for one kind of change only, with a worked example; point out the spelling (produce, production; pollute, pollution). The crossword gives no word list, and most clues send pupils back to the tour (Watt, Bell, cotton). Every task tests words, never grammar.

Suggested procedure

1. (5 min) Ask pupils which invention they could not live without and write the answers on the board.
2. (10 min) Two pupils read the tour aloud; the class answers the six questions.
3. (10 min) Pupils name the six pictures and match the eight words with their meanings.
4. (10 min) Pupils complete the sentences, then read the worked example together and make the nouns with -ion.
5. (10 min) Pupils do the crossword, going back to the tour for the names and dates.
6. (5 min) Check with the answer key on page 4.

Adaptations

[S] Show a picture of a steam train and a cotton factory before reading. Read the tour aloud in two voices before pupils work alone.

[A] Pupils present an invention in four sentences: who, when, what, why it matters. To take it further, the class makes a timeline of inventions from the steam engine to the smartphone.

Materials & prerequisites

One copy of the three pupil pages per pupil, in colour or in black and white. Page 4 is the answer key: keep it. Pupils should know the past simple of common verbs, regular and irregular.