Elementary school kids love becoming an architect for a day. It is also a great way to incorporate math, reading, writing, and even art lessons into a fun topic! We put together a ton of fun architecture activities, like learning about the difference between area and perimeter length using Starbursts, Cheez-Its, or even Legos. We will read about different styles of architecture around the world and even draw a blueprint of your dream house, incorporating elements of your favorite styles! There are tons of free, printables and worksheets, plus a fun writing prompt to get your child thinking about city planning! Before we begin, don’t forget to join our Facebook Group and “like” our Facebook Page, so you won’t miss out on any of our educational fun!
If your child loves architecture and electronics, the ArchiTECH Electronic Smart House is a fantastic combination of both! We also highly recommend reading Cool Architecture which is a kids book filled with interesting facts about architecture. from pyramids to bridges and everything in between!
🧪Architecture STEM Projects
- Learn about architecture principles using marshmallows and toothpicks, as seen in the following video!
- Ready for a harder challenge? Try making a bridge out of spaghetti, like this!
- For our Kindergarten – 2nd grade kids, this fun STEM project comes with loads of free worksheets to accompany the book Iggy Peck, Architect by Andrea Beaty.
- Watch the following video, because it is a fun introduction to architecture for kids!
✏ Architecture Writing Prompt
Here’s our architecture / city planning writing prompt for today! Imagine that you are going to build a brand new city! What would you want your city to have? What “wants” versus “needs” will your city have? How will you entice people to leave where they currently live and move to this new place? What will be special and unique about your city, as compared to other cities in the world?
Alternatively, you can compare and contrast humans and animals as architects using this free, printable workbook!
For our younger kids, you can become a sentence architect with this worksheet!
🎨 Kids Blueprint Drawing of a Dream Home
For our architecture art activity, we will be drawing a blueprint (or you can draw the actual house, if you prefer)! You may also either make up your dream home, or you may draw the actual house that you live in! Here’s a video to get you started https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJbcIvtmzro
Need some inspiration? Checkout this handout on the architecture of American houses to get ideas for features and designs for your home: https://cdn.shopify.com/…/P-AmericanHouses_FPO_c418b141-9e1…
📚 Architecture Around the World for Kids
- Read about different types of house styles around the world: https://inhabitat.com/infographic-21-interesting-house-s…/…/
- Read interesting facts, along with how long it took to build famous structures: http://rubberbond.co.uk/…/how-long-did-famous-structures-t…/
- Have time for more? Pick your favorite house style OR your favorite famous structure and research deeper online to learn more about it!
🧮 Kids Area vs Perimeter Math Projects for Architecture
- Do these great lessons ( and take some quizzes) all about calculating the area and perimeter of various shapes: https://www.khanacademy.org/…/…/basic-geo-area-and-perimeter
- Have Cheez-Its, Starbursts or another small, square shaped item at home? Use them to do this activity to calculate area and the perimeter: https://www.sailingintosecond.com/area-and-perimeter/
- Like coloring? Make this perimeter person and calculate the person’s perimeter: https://awordfromthird.org/perimeter-person-with-freebie/
- Love Legos? Use legos to solidify your understanding of calculating area and perimeters: http://www.gradeschoolgiggles.com/area-perimeter-hands-les…/
- Kindergarten – 2nd Grade
- Here is a free, printable math workbook related to being an architect! This is a great way to practice writing skills as well.
- 3rd – 5th Grades
And the most fun part… share a photo of the blueprint or house you draw (or of any of the other fun activities) on Facebook! Make sure to include a link to this website or to our Facebook Group and Facebook Page, so that we can see it too! I’ve purposefully added a lot of options for parents who need to keep their kiddos occupied for more time and to allow you to cater to your children’s preferences.
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