Discovering Homes Around the World

Discovering Homes Around the World is a complete four-week unit study designed for children ages 5–8. It takes young learners on a journey across every continent, exploring the extraordinary variety of ways that human beings have built shelter throughout history and around the globe today. From the snow-block dome of an Arctic igloo to the felt-covered yurt of a Mongolian nomad, from the mud-brick adobe pueblos of the American Southwest to the bamboo stilt houses of Southeast Asia, children discover that every home tells a story about the place it was built and the people who live inside it.

The unit is built around a single powerful idea: that the climate, materials, and culture of a place shape the way people build. Children learn why thick adobe walls act as a natural thermostat in the desert, why stilt houses keep families dry during monsoon floods, and why the dome shape of an igloo can stay warm at minus 40 degrees. This connection between environment and design runs through every week of the unit, giving children a framework for understanding not just the homes in the unit but any home they encounter in the wider world.

Across four weeks, children engage with the topic through a wide variety of activities including vocabulary bingo, a compare and contrast chart, a homes through history timeline, a memory-style matching game, reading comprehension passages, a bar graph, sorting activities, a movement math lab, a creative design activity, a board game, and a culminating showcase presentation. Every activity covers real academic skills — reading, writing, addition, graph reading, sequencing, and critical thinking — while keeping the focus on the endlessly fascinating subject of how people around the world call a place home.