Children may be interested in houses for many reasons. They may be moving house and feel excited and scared. They may ask questions about houses in other countries or house building materials.
In the early years, children often play with cubby houses and dolls houses.
A child's house is important to them. Homes represent family, protection, warmth, love, rest, relaxation, sleep, privacy, comfort and food.
EYLF Learning Outcomes
The Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) supports children to learn about houses, which are designed to make humans feel safe, secure, and supported (1.1). Children can connect with places and materials (4.4) and become respectful of diverse houses and living situations (2.2).
Learning experiences
Design a house
Show children what house plans look like (find some on the internet) and explain they are like a map for a building. Invite children to design their own dream houses by providing blank sheets of paper and any technical drawing tools you may have (e.g. black pens, lead pencils, erasers, rulers, compasses, set squares and protractors).
Make a house collage
Provide children with twigs or pop sticks, glue, and paper. Encourage children to make a house by gluing the sticks onto the paper to form walls, floors, ceilings and roofs. Children can then draw furniture and their family inside the house.
Build a house from a cardboard box
Ask local stores if they have spare extra-large cardboard boxes. Provide these to the children and support them to make houses. Educators may need to help children cut out doors and windows. Encourage children to draw on their houses and glue on other materials (e.g. fabric curtains).
If a box house is big enough, children can squeeze in themselves. Alternatively, make smaller houses for dolls and soft toys.
Research homes in different cultures
Children around the world live in different types of homes. Start a research project that uses information technology and encourages children to explore the many ways of living.
- Use Google Maps to find houses in different countries. Zoom in, look at any available photos, or use street view. Let children choose where to look and what to look at.
- Watch online videos of houses from around the world. They will often take you on a virtual tour.
- View pictures on real estate websites in different countries.
Investigate animal houses
When children research animal houses they will learn how simple structures are built and engineered. They will gain awareness of natural materials and the unique needs of different animals.
Bird nests, burrows, caves, dens, hives, shells, spider webs, and termite mounds.
- Use books and the internet, but also go outside and observe local wildlife.
- Set up a provocation on a table, such as a bird's nest or beehive, that children can inspect and draw.
- Can children build structures themselves, like spiderwebs from wool, bird's nests from twigs and grass, or burrows in the sandpit?
- Ask children about their pets at home. Where do they sleep at night?
Discussions
- What does home mean to you? What does being there feel like? What do you think makes a house feel like a home?
- Can you tell me about your house or apartment? What are some of the rooms in your house? What are some of your favourite things about your house?
- Have you ever been to a different kind of house, such as a big mansion, a houseboat, a tree house or a tiny house?
Resources
Picture books
- Home by Carson Ellis
- Home by Britta Teckentrup
- Home by Jeannie Baker
- Living with Mum and Living with Dad: My Two Homes by Melanie Walsh
- Grandma's House by Alice Melvin
- Lonely Planet Kids: A Place Called Home