Homes around the world

Ages 3 to 5 Read and do together · about 15 minutes

Read together

Homes can be tall or small. They can be round or square.

Some are on stilts. Some are tents. Some are on boats.

Do it

1. Look at pictures of homes: a bahay kubo on stilts (Philippines), a yurt, or ger, a round felt tent (Mongolia), an adobe house (Mexico and the American South-West), a houseboat, a tall apartment.
2. Ask: why is it built that way? A house on stilts stays dry in floods and lets air flow. A ger can be folded and carried.
3. Build one with blocks or a cardboard box. Draw its door.
4. Say, “All people need a home.”

Talk about it

• Which home would you like to visit?
• What is the same in every home?

For the grown-up

People build homes to fit their land, weather and way of life. Please avoid saying that people “still live in igloos”, which is not true of most. Many Inuit used snow houses as winter hunting shelters, and live in modern homes today.

Mark as done

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Where this comes from

• Paul Oliver, Dwellings: The Vernacular House World Wide (Phaidon, 2003)
• Cultural Center of the Philippines Encyclopedia of Philippine Art, entries on Philippine architecture and the bahay kubo
• Inuit Cultural resources on traditional snow houses and present-day housing, such as material from the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (Canada)

Written with AI assistance and checked against the sources listed. Please read it before sharing it with a child.