I am so excited about this block. It's hard to choose from among all of the house options. I already know that I'm saving Native American houses (and Bonnie Shemie's wonderful book series on Native Dwellings) for 5th grade U.S. Geography, so that does help make things simpler, but I do want to include some Laura Ingalls Wilder. (Reading Farmer Boy is classic in Waldorf third grade, but I'm choosing excerpts from two others.)
I also know that we are going to have at least one special guest... plus be able to take a field trip to visit a straw bale house and talk with one of the people who built it. The kids are also doing Shelter Building as one the topics in their Survival Skills unit at Farm Day. What could be more perfect?
Finally, this is going to be one of my Summer Camp topics this year, so there's another 5 days built in to cover all the cool things we cannot get to.
Here is my current planning and I'll write more as we go along, detailing what we actually did! I've got a variety of great books for this block. If a type of house is included in more than one book, I've listed all of them here.
The Story of a Nail by Irving Adler
How Do People Live? by Philip Steele
Wonderful Houses Around the World - my choices
Europe
"Sculpted House," Trojan Horse, Asia Minor
Floating House, the Netherlands
- If You Lived Here: Houses of the World
activity: play with buoyancy
"Houses that Breathe Through Chimneys," Spain
(cave dwellings are found in other places around the world as well)
- Wonderful Houses Around the World
If You Lived Here: Houses of the World
How Do People Live? (Turkey)
Traditional Houses from Around the World #17 (Turkey)
Houses of China (northern China)
activity: shape caves out of clay
Asia
special guest visitors!
Bedouin Tent, Arabia
- Traditional Houses from Around the World #7
some additional background information on the Bedouin People
activity: build a model (dowel rods, fabric scraps, container of sand)
"A White House in the Grasslands," Mongolian Yurt
- Wonderful Houses Around the World
If You Lived Here: Houses of the World
Traditional Houses from Around the World #11 (Iran)
an interesting link for older siblings studying The Middle Ages: Metropolis: Ten Cities, Ten Centuries, "A Mongol Tent City, 13th century," "The Enormous Empire," "Life in a Mongol City" pages
activity: wet felting flat pieces of felt in bubble wrap
Australia
Aboriginal Bark Hut
- Traditional Houses from Around the World #19
activity: build a model
Africa
Baobab Tree House, Sudan
- Traditional Houses from Around the World #6
read My Great-Grandmother's Gourd by Cristina Kessler
activity: scrape out soft spongy wood from a decaying log
"Earthen Castles," Togo
-
Wonderful Houses Around the World
activity: make lotion bars with shea butter
"Warrior's Corral," Zulu People, South Africa
- House: Showing How People Have Lived Throughout History with Examples Drawn from the Lives of Legendary Men and Women
activity: weaving with small branches
South America
Huts Made of Branches, Brazil
"Houses Shaped Like Acorns," Chipaya People, Bolivia
-
Wonderful Houses Around the World
activity: cook and taste quinoa
Palafito, Chiloe Island, Chile
(houses on stilts are found in other places around the world as well)
-
If You Lived Here: Houses of the World
Traditional Houses from Around the World #43 (Brazil)
Traditional Houses from Around the World #15 (Thailand)
How Do People Live? (Indonesia, Papua New Guinea)
Houses of China (southern China)
activity: look at all of these locations on the biome map of the world
"Southern Explorations" and "Functional Dwellings," Kon-Tiki raft
- House: Showing How People Have Lived Throughout History with Examples Drawn from the Lives of Legendary Men and Women
activity: build a "raft" for pretend play in the yard with landscape timbers
North America
Covered Wagon
Log Cabin
-
Pogo's House: The Story of Lumber
If You Lived Here: Houses of the World
Traditional Houses from Around the World #41
activity: build with Lincoln logs
Sod House
Dugout
Straw Bale House
- activity: visit a straw bale house and talk with one of the builders
Cob House
- The Hand-Sculpted House: A Practical and Philosophical Guide to Building a Cob Cottage
activity: do a shake test of our soil (p.122), plan to make a cob bench over the summer, meet with someone who builds cob bread ovens
Brick House
- Traditional Houses from Around the World #37
activity: build with Teifoc mini bricks and mortar
Geodesic Dome
- Buckminster Fuller, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale IL
activity: visit and take a tour of his house, build a kid-sized geodesic dome structure using 20 inch long straws
It would be nice when we add these to the MLB to do a colored crayon border around each two page spread to represent which continent the house type is found on. In Montessori, there's a colored globe of the continents and these colors are used throughout the curriculum. North America is orange. South America is pink. Europe is red. Asia is yellow. Africa is green. Australia & Oceania is brown. Antarctica is white (but won't be included in this MLB).
This post contains affiliate links to the materials I actually use for homeschooling. I hope you find them helpful. Thank you for your support!
Immersive Experience
Immersive Experience
Immersive Experience
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