Homes and Houses

Back to some thematic unit resources and ideas for anyone teaching a unit on the Homes and Houses theme! Hope you find these useful!:
History: Homes in the Past
First the children drew a picture of their house on one half of a sheet and told their partner (and a few told all the class) what their house was like, how many rooms it had, what it was made of etc. 
We then looked at houses people lived in long ago, when our Great Granny and Grandad were little. I laminated pictures of old thatched houses and they used whiteboard markers to circle parts of the house that were different than their own. Each group got a different style of old house. 

These images do not belong to me. They are used for education purposes.

We then talked about all the things we saw and I got them to point them out to me in their picture. (Show me the straw roof! Show me the little door! Show me the stone walls! Show me how many rooms they had on your fingers etc.)
They then drew a picture of a house from the past to complete their drawing.

Science: Electricity at Home

We discussed why our class CD wasn't working (it wasn't plugged in - silly teacher ;) ) and this led us into a discussion on electricity, plugs and switches. We played 'I Spy': we spied things in the classroom that use electricity and I pulled some items out of the magic bag and they told me whether they used electricity or not. (Useful tip: They need a wire and a plug if they do!) We coloured things in our workbook that used electricity and crossed out the ones that didn't.

The following week we discussed electrical safety and read the story:

 ‘Lil’ Plug and lil’ Red Safety Adventures'   

We made stop signs and held them up anytime the characters in the story were doing something dangerous with electricity.

Following the story, to sum up the learning, we played this brilliant game to revise and test the children's learning:

 Spot The Danger Interactive Game

Geography: Homes

We discussed and played matching games with the rooms in the house and what they contain. We then created these (one house made at each table):

 Each member at each table got a room to design and decorate and then the group put the 'puzzle' together and stuck it into the house frame.

http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/01/33/25/
1332594_fed6200e.jpg

The following week we learned about the various types of homes locally and internationally. We performed actions to learn these home types (e.g. apartment - stand on toes, igloo - make a circle with arms on knees, tepee - make a triangle with arms over head, terraced - link hands with lots of people, semi- detached- link hands with one partner) (I got this idea from another website, but can't remember where sorry!) We then made one of the house types from lollipop sticks (each group got a different type to make). This was loads of fun for everyone.

Art: The House That Grew:
We talked about the story of the house that grew:

    “A husband and wife moved into a house in the middle of the forest. At first this house was very small, but, as time went on and the couple had more and more children (go into detail), the house got bigger and bigger. The husband and wife kept thinking of new and exciting things and rooms to add to their house, things that no one had ever thought of before. If anyone saw the house they would think it was the strangest house they had ever seen. They tried to make every room they built have something to do with things that the child liked to do. It was the most funny looking house that there ever was, with all kinds of strange things sticking out of it, lots of different shapes, things made from the funniest of materials, furry things, shiny parts, wooden things, holey parts, all stuck onto it from every direction!”
We made collage houses using various material types with lots of 'funny' extensions!

Music: Building Composition
We talked about things you would do on a building site when building a house. We mimed some things we could do (using sounds) and the rest of the class guessed what activity it was. We created a building composition with each group taking a particular working tool to do the sound and action of. They all drew a picture of the tool they were making the sound of and we stuck these onto a long sheet of paper to form a composition sequence. We performed this following the composition chart (using dynamics also). 

English: Poem:     

Chores

http://hookedonthebook.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/kids-chores.jpg

‘"Do the dishes,
Clean your room,
Use the vacuum,
Then the broom,
Wash the laundry,
Fold the clothes,
Clean the fridge,
Then the stove,
Wipe the counters,
Mop the floor,
Scrub all around,
Your bedroom door,
Clean the bathroom,
Toilet and all.
Get all your things,
Out of the hall,
You listening, Tom?"

I have to go,”
“What’s that Mom?

I wasn’t, no.”’ 

 from http://zelmo13.easycgi.com/childrenspoems/poempoetry43957.htm

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