Wonderful Houses Around the World
updated August 19, 2023
Recorded here is my own personal collection of articles, resources, favorite links, teaching ideas, and lesson plans. It encompasses many years, from the very beginning of my experience studying and learning about Waldorf to the present time. People from all around the world visit my site and recommend it to others. Welcome!
This site records my journey. I hope my honesty is encouraging and helps break down some barriers that may prevent people from trying Waldorf methods. Because this is an ongoing site documenting my curriculum planning and ideas, some materials are more Waldorf-y than others. Please feel free to take what you like and leave the rest.
This page has helpful links and LOADS of free resources to help you plan your third grade year. Enjoy!
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Housebuilding
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Lesson Block Planning: Housebuilding
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Pinterest - Renee Schwartz
My curated collection of visuals! Browse sample main lesson book pages, watercolor paintings, chalkboard drawings, etc. for
Housebuilding.
FREE eBooks at the Online Waldorf Library
Excellent resource! Published Waldorf curriculum books provided here in PDF format for you to download, keep, and read... for free!
Learning about the World through Modeling by Arthur
Auer, pp.68-71, 73
- Designing Your Own Wonder House
- Native American Dwellings: Fort Building, Adobe Village
- Simple Pottery: Basic Pinch Bowl or Pot, Coil Method
- Snow House
Sample Lessons and Free Curriculum
Other Helpful Links
BLACKBOARD SKETCHING book
by
FREDERICK WHITNEY (1908)
available online for free - with step by step directions and illustrations
How to Bind a Main Lesson Book
The Spring 1977 Issue of the Waldorf Clearing House Newsletter focused on 3rd grade
Read my The Maths of Practical Life: Notes on Measurement
page for lots of ideas on how to incorporate Linear Measurement into the third grade year!
The Eagle Huntress is a great documentary (87 minutes, rated G) and wonderful to watch when you're studying Mongolia
 
Waseca Biomes has classroom material for how different indigenous people around the world meet
their fundamental needs (including shelter) based on where they live - this link is to North America ($20), but they have them for all continents
I also really like the Waseca Biomes Biomes of the World Mat. You can
also buy paper maps of each continent with the biomes indicated, as opposed to political maps.
*NEW* The People of the Biomes blog post lists every people on every continent in every biome
in the Waseca Biomes material; for every single one there is a shelter card!
Check the Archaeological Conservancy's website to see if there
are archaeological digs of any native building sites near you! We live in the Mound Builders area in the Midwestern U.S., near
Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site and Kincaid Mounds State Historic Site.
Kid-Sized Geodesic Dome
blog post - DesertWind
we are fortunate to live by Bucky Fuller's original dome house, the one in which he lived!
you'll need to buy 20-inch long straws to build this
 
*NEW* If you're doing this block in Winter, try the Colorful Ice Fort idea from the Oak Meadow newsletter. This
just takes
½ gallon paper milk or juice cartons
Food coloring
Water
Freezer or freezing temperature outdoors
Building a Colorful Ice Fort
blog post - Switzerite
 
Building with Cob
blog post - Switzerite
The Hand-Sculpted House:
A Practical and Philosophical Guide to Building a Cob Cottage
Making a low cob garden border, sculpting a bench, or creating a mud oven are all wonderful projects for the Housebuilding block!
Build Your Own Earth Oven:
A Low-Cost Wood-Fired Mud Oven, Simple Sourdough Bread, Perfect Loaves
Homebuilding and Woodworking in Colonial America by C. Keith Wilbur
 
As I write in my U.S. Geography: Woodland Indians, Mound Builders blog post, I am starting to prefer doing other
types of housebuilding than the Native American ones for third grade, and saving the Bonnie Shemie series (below) for fifth grade U.S. Geography.
Books to Buy
I highly recommend using your public library extensively for this block,
although if you can find a used copy of Roy Wilkinson's out of print book
Teaching Practical Activities:
Farming, Gardening, Housebuilding for Ages 9 and 10, I suggest using it to frame these two classic 3rd grade main lesson blocks.
Housebuilding for Children: Step-by-Step Plans for Houses Children Can Build Themselves
I love the simple greenhouse design in this book and it also ties in well with the Farming & Gardening block.
Housebuilding notes - Africa:
Traditional Houses from Around the World
by A.G. Smith is good background information for the teacher. It is a Dover coloring book but you can use the illustrations and background information to help you plan. Somba clay houses in Benin, Masai houses in Kenya, Dogon cliff dwellings in Mali, Moroccan brick houses in North Africa, painted mud houses in Nigeria, and a Baobab tree house in Sudan are all included.
How Do People Live?
by Philip Steele (based on the Hungarian original by Lajos Boglar) is also a nice resource, which includes Tuareg animal skin tents, mud houses in Nigeria and Mali, wood and mud buildings around Lake Chad in West Africa, branch and cowhide huts on the Africans plains, mud brick houses in the Nubian desert, and the thatched huts of the Dogon people. The illustrations are really lovely. They would be great for a chalkboard.
If You Lived Here: Houses of the World
by Giles Laroche includes the decorated houses of Ndebele (Pretoria, Transvaal, South Africa)
 
Wonderful Houses Around the World
by Yoshio Komatsu includes Togo and Senegal. Photographs of the exterior and drawn diagrams of the interior are featured.
Rain School
by James Rumford
I also really love A Ride on Mother's Back: A Day of Baby Carrying Around the World
by Emery & Durga Bernhard. It includes the Mbuti, Tuareg, and Mandingo.
Housebuilding notes - Native Americans:
Recorded here is my own personal collection of articles, resources, favorite links, teaching ideas, and lesson plans. It encompasses many years, from the very beginning of my experience studying and learning about Waldorf to the present time. People from all around the world visit my site and recommend it to others. Welcome!
This site records my journey. I hope my honesty is encouraging and helps break down some barriers that may prevent people from trying Waldorf methods. Because this is an ongoing site documenting my curriculum planning and ideas, some materials are more Waldorf-y than others. Please feel free to take what you like and leave the rest.
Blog posts from when I taught this block as a summer camp in 2019:
Blog posts from when I taught this block as a summer camp in 2018:
Blog posts from when I taught this block in Spring 2018:
Older versions of this block:
Human Habitation (PDF)
Native American Legends
some families do Native American Legends simultaneously with a block on shelter building; others do them as their own topic
See also the notes from my 2008 Summer Camps - camp topics included Farming & Gardening
and Housebuilding.
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