The Old Lady Who Lived In A Shoe

There was an old lady,

Who lived in a shoe.

She had so many children,

She didn't know what to do.

She gave them some broth,

Without any bread.

And whipped them all soundly,

And sent them to bed. 

So what exactly was this shoe house like, what materials was it made from, was it a suitable residence?

We decided to find out.....

The children have been working on properties of materials for a while. We discussed the house and what type of materials we would need - they would need to be waterproof as we want to put the house outside. Lots of vocabulary that we had learnt previously came up again.  

We used welly-boots for the main structure of the house.

First we made the windows:

The children drew their window design onto a laminating sheet with permanent marker.

They chose fabrics for the curtains and placed them inside the laminating sheet, and around the windows. Then we laminated.

We cut the windows out leaving plenty of plastic around them to help with sticking them into the boot. We used a Stanley knife to cut the windows and door shape out of the boots. 

We stuck the windows over the hole on the inside of the boot with a glue gun. R stuck on an old picture frame for the door and L used a shell. 

We made ladders for the people to reach the doors with string, matchsticks and curtain rings.

Next we used lolly sticks to make the roof structure.

R covered his roof with tiles left over from our bathroom and some metal from a tomato purée tube. L used buttons to decorate her roof.

R added a fence so the people wouldn't fall off.

Then the children added buttons and fences to decorate the boots. R made a door canopy from plastic.

Here are the finished houses.

R's finished house

L's finished house