Colonial Houses Project Freebie

Happy Friday!  Today we read the book William's House by Ginger Howard.  The video of the book is also available on United Streaming (Discovery Education). 

This book is about a pilgrim from England who arrives in the new world to build a house.  It describes the building process and then the conflicts he faces as he realizes the new world is different than England. We talked about how difficult it must have been to make these homes and what they were made of and then made our own out of a few simple and cheap supplies.

Yesterday all of my kids saved their milk cartons from lunch.  We rinsed them out and allowed them to dry overnight.  This was the frame of their house.  I bought a LARGE jar of peanut butter, some stick pretzels (2 bags) and a box of shredded wheat. So today we worked hard, making our colonial homes.  Here are a few pictures of the process:

Students began by smearing the peanut butter all over the milk carton.  This is the daub (or mud) they used to hold the logs together.  Then they used the pretzel sticks to cover the base of the carton to represent the logs of the house.

The top of the carton of course was the roof and after smearing the peanut butter (daub) students crumbled shredded wheat on top for the thatch.  They were so proud of their houses.

Some students were very tedious about the placement of their logs.  And some students spaced them out a bit more.  They were all original and they all turned out awesome!

I took a picture of each child with their house.  I will then print them out and will use them for a writing project.  The students will describe how they built their house. 

I made a writing page for both girls and boys.  Since the book was called "William's House", they will write their name so that it is "Julie's House" or "Sam's House".  We will do the writing portion of this project on Monday, but thought I would share it with you in case you would like to make some colonial homes next week.  Here is the writing paper.

This project was a fun way to spend a Friday afternoon.  Monday we will write about our homes and share those with you when they are finished.  We have two days of school next week and then a FIVE day break!  I am looking forward to Thanksgiving Break and time to spend with family.  I would love to know what you think about our colonial homes.  Have a great weekend!