Lesson 6: Paper Mache Houses

 For the sixth lesson I had students start out by drawing a warm up of what their dream house would be on paper.  I then started to give a basic explanation of what paper mache is and how we would be making a dream house structure using the paper mache technique. I continued by showing them some pictures of extremely unique houses to get them inspired and thinking about what kind of house they would make. I also told them that while thinking about what kind of house you wanted to make keep in mind how you will incorporate different shapes in your structure, which I think helped them to brainstorm how they will create the house. Afterwards I brought out all the supplies for creating the structures for the house, which was pieces of cardboard, some boxes, water bottles, tape, and paper. I showed them how they can create the bases for their house by taping together cardboard, shaping scrunched up paper, and using the water bottles to add more diverse shapes to their structures. I also did my best to explain to them that these structures don’t have to be perfect because we will be covering them with the paper mache technique but they still had a little bit of trouble understanding this. If I did this in the future I think I would try to show an example of creating these houses without taking up too much class time. I had trouble figuring out how to do this since my class does struggle when it comes to listening to directions because they get too antsy. I think maybe if I had a base already put together with all the techniques of taping together different materials and using scrunched up paper to create different shapes and then just explaining that part instead of demonstrating it and instead using the time to demonstrate the paper mache process of the project they would have understood better. However I do feel that overall this project did go pretty well! All of the kids really enjoyed it and they loved how hands on it was. If the kids had any misunderstanding with the project in the beginning they definitely caught on quick with me just walking around and helping them with their projects. Since this project was a bit more time consuming we will be continuing the paper mache portion of it next class and I think they are excited to get to finishing and decorating these projects!