A Special Place

Study homes and habitats from the past then move into the future to construct innovative new living spaces.

• 1.

  Use electronic and library resources to research the homes of various cultures and the habitats of various animals.

• 2.

  Participate in a group brainstorm of alternative ways to use the limited space available in the future. Consider how living spaces might change if humans/animals reside in atypical locations (i.e., sky, underwater). List criteria to consider as you design a "special place" for the future, including needs, special features, entrances, building materials and power sources.

• 3.

  Select a specific environment for your future living space. Use Crayola® Model Magic® to construct buildings, water storage facilities, and other structures.

• 4.

  Experiment with mixing white and colored Crayola Model Magic modeling compound. <LI>Blend two primary colors (red, yellow, blue) together well to make a secondary hue (orange, green, violet). <LI>Blend colored compound with white to create tints and with black to make shades.</LI></UL> <UL> <LI>Create marbled effects by incompletely blending various colors together.</LI></UL>

• 5.

  Shape mixed compound with hands or a rolling pin to make thick flat pieces or slabs for a floor. Use a plastic picnic knife to cut out geometric wall and floor shapes.

• 6.

  Glue the floor shape to a base of oak tag board. Assemble and press walls and floor together.

• 7.

  Cut out additional slabs and shape these into towers, roof and other components. Build long, thin or delicate forms around plastic straws, gift wrap tubes or toothpicks secured in basic structure.

• 8.

  Model fine details and add texture with modeling tools, plastic dinnerware or toothpicks. Let forms dry.

• 9.

  Use Crayola Washable Markers to suggest place's setting on the oak tag board base. Draw and texture paper shapes (i.e., trees, fences, rocks) with washable markers to represent other setting qualities. Use Crayola Scissors to cut out shapes, adding a tab

• 10.

  Name your special place, then explain its location, design and special features in writing. What did you add to indicate it belongs to you or a particular creature?

Benefits

• Students research distinctive homes and habitats of the past and present.
• Students design innovative new homes and habitats for the future, synthesizing information learned from research.

Adaptations

• Develop new homes and habitats for ancient cultures, imagining the new innovations each culture would have developed had the society survived.
• Use Model Magic to build tools that might be found inside of the homes and used by people in the future. Display with future spaces, writing details about tools on index cards with markers.