The students needed the simplified plan drawing as a template to follow, but were creative in designing and decorating their individual house plans. This exercise was difficult to accomplish in the time for the session. Structure of the plank house and how the building stands up. Talk about what a post and beam are. Have the students finish their plan drawings of the plank house.
Students decorate the walls of the individual houses with Indian symbols.
Discuss materials used for the structure and decoration. They were able to understand the different elements of the structure and identify them as post and beam. Many students had difficulty building the structure of their individual plank houses because the wood clothes pins, dowels, and cardboard were hard for the second graders to handle. The teaching team had to assist many of them. Discuss the structure of the plank house and how the building stands up.