Goal: Build a "house" you can fit inside
Grade: K, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 Group size: 4 or more Time: 20 minutes or more
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Materials: Newspapers: at least 8 per group of 4 Tape: 1 roll per group of 4 Scissors: 1 pair per group of 4 Recycled materials such as cardboard tubes: several per group of 4 Prerequisites: None |
Gather newspaper and recycled materials.
Decide where to do the activity. Allow enough room for small groups to build a structure that one person can fit inside (sitting or standing).
Explain that each group will build a “house” that a child can fit inside.
Distribute materials and show how to roll and tape newspaper into tubes.
Groups talk over:
Size and shape of the structure and
Group roles: how to divide the work so everyone contributes.
2. Build
Let children know when 10 minutes are left to build. Those who finish early can decorate their houses.
3. Give house tours
As needed, prompt with questions such as:
How many walls (or surfaces) does your house have?
What shapes do you see in your house?
What’s a problem you ran into and how did you solve it?
Which of the houses we made is the tallest? widest? longest?
Variations
Recycled City (Grades K, 1, 2)
Children gather a set of toy cars or stuffed animals and build a city for them. Each pair plans and contributes a structure, such as a garage, apartment building, or schoolroom.
Houses Around the World (Grades 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
Children read about different kinds of houses—stilt houses in the Amazon, round houses in South Africa, or Native American teepees—then build their own.
Books and Other Resources
My Painted House, My Friendly Chicken, and Me (Grades K, 1, 2)
Angelou, Maya. New York: Clarkson Potter, 1994.Block City (Grades K, 1, 2)
Stevenson, Robert Louis. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1988.A Life Like Mine (Grades: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
DK and UNICEF. New York: DK Publishing, 2002.Pyramid (Grades: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
Macaulay, David. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975.
Creating 2-D and 3-D shapes
As
children, plan, build, and discuss their houses, they gain hands-on experience
with
2-D and 3-D shapes:
• They compare length, width, and height of different shapes.
• They relate sizes and shapes to their own bodies.
• They investigate what happens when they rotate, flip, and turn different shapes.
• They combine 2-D shapes to form a 3-D structure.
Building structures from scratch lays the groundwork for understanding concepts in geometry, physics, and other areas of math and science. Many children have had little of this experience; it is especially important for them to have a chance to design and build in three three dimensions.
ConnectionsSpatial Sense
Drivers use spatial sense when looking for a parking space and making quick decisions about whether a space is big enough for their car. At home, ability to visualize sizes and shapes is useful when choosing containers for storing leftovers and finding efficient ways to pack lunchboxes.
Some professions require visualizing a complex set of interacting objects. Nurses, medical technicians, and doctor need to know where body organs are located and how they fit together in order to make sense of medical images, patient symptoms, and medical reports. Plumbers need to visualize complex pathways of pipes in order to work with pipes and drains located out of sight, behind walls or underground.
©2008 TERC, Cambridge, MA. All rights reserved.
