If I Built a House
In this lesson, children will use a variety of open-ended materials to create engineering designs of houses and then construct and test their designs.
Learning Goals:
This lesson will help children meet the following educational standards:
- Demonstrate curiosity about the world and begin to use the practices of science and engineering to answer questions and solve problems
- Explore concepts and information about the physical, earth and life sciences
- Understand important connections and concepts in science and engineering
Learning Targets:
After this lesson, children should be more proficient at:
- Developing beginning skills in the use of science and engineering practices such as observing, asking questions, solving problems, and drawing conclusions
- Developing and using models to represent their ideas, observations and explanations through approaches such as drawing, building or modeling with clay
- Identifying, describing and comparing the physical properties of objects
- Exploring the effect of force on objects
- Using nonstandard and standard scientific tools for investigation
Step 1: Gather materials.
- The book, If I Built a House, by Chris Van Dusen
- House-building materials:
- Clothespins, paper clips, brass round-head butterfly clips, clamps
- Crayons, markers, paint, scissors
- Duct tape, masking tape, washi tape, yarn, wire, string
- Recycled cans and empty food boxes
- Boxes of all sizes (bigger boxes make bigger houses)
- Shipping tubes or wrapping-paper tubes
Step 2: Introduce activity.
- Read: If I Built a House (taking time to study the illustrations)
- Discuss the book.
- Ask: "What did you like about the house and which room was your favorite?"
- Ask: "Would you like to build a house like this or keep the house you live in?"
Step 3: Engage children in lesson activities.
- Now that you've gathered your materials, start the planning process.
- Say: "Today, we are going to build our own houses."
- Divide the class into small groups and instruct the children to use the provided materials to build a house. Each group will build one house.
- Explain: "When designing buildings, engineers use the engineering design process, which includes the following steps:
- Research: Find out what other people have already made.
- Gather requirements: List all of the things that a new building must have to function properly.
- Brainstorm and plan: Think of lots of different design ideas and then choose the best ones.
- Build and test: Build the first house and then test it.
- Redesign and retest: Keep changing, testing and improving the design until it meets all of the requirements as well as it possibly can.
- Ask the children to brainstorm ideas of what their house would look like.
- You may wish to ask the children to draw an example of what their house would look like.
- Ask: "What does their house need?"
- Ask: "What room will they build first?"
- Ask: "How will they connect the materials?"
- After discussing design and planning, instruct the children to begin working on their house.
Step 4: Engineering vocabulary
- Attribute: A feature of an object
- Base: The part of a building that sits on the ground
- Combine: To add materials together, resulting in a new, changed material
- Design: To create a plan for something that will be built
- Representation: To visually display an idea through drawing, painting, constructing, or modeling
- Test: To try out an idea to see if it works or not
Step 5: Extensions
- To make a house big enough for the children to play inside, try draping blankets, towels or sheets over tables, desks and chairs. Use clamps or string to hold the fabric in place.
Suggested Books
- If I Built a Car by Chris Van Dusen
- If I Built a School by Chris Van Dusen
Music and Movement
Outdoor Connections
- Use parachutes and clamps to transform an outdoor playground structure into a house.
Web Resources
- Check out this read-aloud performance of the book, If I Built a House.
Comment on this lesson.