Any ideas for an CM activity for 30 - 60 month olds involving homes and houses?

[Numberfour]

I want to do an activity with 30 - 60 month olds about houses and the different types of homes that people live in.

I thought about some kind of story (any suggestions?), then maybe drawing or colouring and then den building or wet sand play to make mud huts or sand castles.

Ideally the activity should be part inside part out and the outside should be able to be held inside if the weather is mean and nasty to me that day.

Help?

Bingo , draw shape of house, then square windows, rectangle door and Chimney, circle hall window, triangle roof.

Colour each house different and then make matching cards for each house.

give each child a 'House' pull the cards out of a bag, first to over all their houses in.

It covers shapes, and colours.

my older ones love playing this.

(must make a new one, mine is 5 years old and a bit knocked about )

Or you could have pictures of different sorts of homes, make double and play memory games with them.

I LOVE SHOSHE

Awwwww Shucks

the bingo thing is FANTASTIC!! one of the EYP standards i have to show evidence for is developing and using skills in numeracy, literacy and ict. using the shapes bingo house thingy covers numeracy perfectly with shapes and sizes. and numeracy was the one area that was lacking in two of my written tasks but now it will be covered SPECTACULARLY!!

brilliant!!! thousand thanks.

you can use the same idea with all sorts of things, ie faces, circle eyes rectangle nose triangle mouth square hat, sort of thing.

30 5yr olds, you are brave

Go out and see how many pictures you can take of different kinds of houses?

no no no no no!!!

30 months old to 60 months old!!!

the very thought makes me want to run screaming a bit like this....
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHH.

Story - 3 little pigs?

If you had unlimited resources, outside - you could get them building houses with straw bales, large wooden blocks & polystyrene bricks

But who has that sort of money

Here for Bingo cards

three Little pigs Colouring

Not on the same subject, but i have The Brown Bear Brown Bear, and Polar bear Polar bear books (brilliant books)

I printed and laminated these, stuck magnets on the back and the children find and stick to the radiator the animals as we read, it is another geat favorite.

cannot thank you all enough!!

You could do junk modelling - tissue boxes and stuff.

Sponge painting

collage

if the children live near each other you could do a map on a roll of wallpaper

you could do the map idea with balamory or whatever they like to watch.

you could do the 3 pigs story and get some wood,straw and some stone for them to touch

you could get some leaflets from an estate agent and make a brochure including their work

you could ask the mums for a picture of the child outside their home and make a display saying 'this is me,Joanna.I live in tickletown.I am 4.My front door is red. etc etc.

Draw a large empty house. Children can draw items or rip pictures from Argos catalogue and put furniture etc in each room.

I did a similar activity with my minded children. I did have schoolies aswell but I started off by asking on suggestions of the different places children live. Then I had ice cubes and shaving foam at the ready with plastic polar bears, penguins and mammoths. The younger children did messy play and the older ones had a go at building an igloo. Then we went outside and used sheets and garden canes to build a teepee then we came inside and made a native american headress with feathers and card. You could talk about cultures, weather, shapes and colours.

WOW WOW WOW!! such fantastic ideas. i have been thinking about this for about 2 weeks and was stumped.

no more so! thanks,everyone. i hope i can return the favour some time!

I do this in circle time (inspired by something I read but can't find). Draw a large house using suggestions from children as to shapes/locations of doors/windows chimneys etc. everyone chooses a different colour (e.g. crayon).

Tell a story about how all the children live in the house and they need to paint the house but all want to do it a different colour. after arguing, fighting and getting sad about this all day, it is bedtime and everyone goes upstairs to sleep. In the night one child wakes up and goes out to paint the house their colour. Suddenly before they get too far they hear another child coming and quickly run back to bed with the house partitally painted. The next child then sneeks out in the dark and paints their colour until they hear someone coming... so on round the circle.
In the 'morning' they go outside ready for another day of disagreement and look at their house which is a rainbow house using everyones colours and contributions- far superior outcome to one colour or working alone.

Children often so preoccupied with their colour that they don't see the whole effect of the rainbow house until you draw their attention to it. Can be done with a carboard house outside with paint if more time. Story can be as elaborate as you like.

Oligo I love that idea.

i am thrilled to bits with all the suggestions. Thank you so much, everyone.