In this 3rd grade project, student teams design tiny houses for local community members acting as “clients.” The driving question is, “How can we design a tiny house that meets the needs of our clients?” Students create layouts and paper models of the house, a budget sheet, a written paragraph explaining how their proposal meets the needs of their client, and make a presentation to their client.

Learning goals include math (area & perimeter) and English Language Arts (informational & opinion writing; non-fiction reading; note taking; summarizing).

Check out a version of this project that you can implement in your own classroom.