Turn your children into budding architects with these KS1 'Homes' lessons for Year 1 and Year 2. Full of practical activities and inspirational ideas, these DT houses and homes lessons provide all the information they need to design, make and evaluate their own model houses. With lesson plans, informative and helpful slides, activity ideas, differentiated worksheets, picture cards, design ideas and much more, this DT 'Homes' scheme of work gives you everything you need to teach these hands-on lessons. All you need to provide is the cardboard boxes!

You might also like our Houses and Homes Topic Bundle – perfect if you're looking for a cross-curricular approach to your teaching!

Shapes and Features

The first lesson in this series encourages your class to explore and investigate the various types of houses people live in around the world. In their independent activities, they will further explore the features of houses using their observation skills to answer questions and solve riddles.

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Combining Materials

In this practical lesson, your class will briefly focus on the different materials used when building houses, before discussing how architects make models of their designs before constructing them. Children will discuss how they could combine and join materials to make their own model house. In their independent activities, children practise using and joining materials using different methods.

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Choosing Materials

Encourage your class to use their creativity in this lesson! Children will focus on the interior of the house, and how they could make models of items of furniture. They will be encouraged to think about the properties of different materials, and how these properties could help or hinder them. In their independent activities, children choose and use a variety of materials to make models of items of furniture.

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Designing Houses

At the start of this lesson, children will discuss what design criteria are. They will look at the design criteria for their model house, and talk about how they could achieve these goals as a class, before creating a design plan. In the alternative activity, children are given ‘clients’, who have specific wants, to design a house for!

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Making Homes

Your class can put their creative genius to work as they follow their designs to make their own model homes! Before making their model house, children will be encouraged to look over their plans and remind themselves of the materials, equipment and joining techniques they will use. As a class, they will revisit the design criteria and discuss how they can make sure their models are stable. Please note that, due to the practical nature of this lesson, worksheets are not necessary and, therefore are not included.

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House Evaluation

In the final lesson in this series, children will share their model houses with their classmates, and discuss how successful they are in relation to the design criteria. They will then evaluate their own houses using the worksheets provided, explaining how their models could be improved if they were to make them again.

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