Five Queensland (Australia) schools, two private andthree non-private (state), participated in the first year(fourth grade) of this 3-year longitudinal study. Wechose to commence our work with fourth-grade classesgiven that our prior work with students in grades 7–9(e.g., English, Hudson, & Dawes, 2013) indicated thatthe processes of engineering design required long-termdevelopment and that this development needed to commence in the earlier grades. Both private and stateschools were chosen as we were committed to introducing engineering education into both education sectors,where interest in STEM education is just emerging. Further, all schools indicated a keenness for their studentsto engage in these new learning experiences. Seven classes and their teachers completed the first year of activities, three from large private schools and the remainderfrom smaller state schools. We focus in this article onthe three private school classes (N = 63; mean age =9 years 8 months), given that their school timetablingand the students’ greater fluency with the English language enabled more comprehensive data to be obtained.