No huffing and puffing will blow it down.
One of the Three Little Pigs could have used this lesson. College kids built a house of straw for a class project! They used thick straw bales. They covered the walls with adobe inside and out. It will be snug and dry. And it should not blow away!
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Art and design students at the University of Michigan built a small house. They laid a foundation of concrete. That is important. Matthew 7:24 says, “A wise man built his house on the rock.” The walls are not made of loose straw. Thick bales are stacked and covered with adobe. This is a mixture of dirt, plaster, and straw. Big beams sit on the bales and hold them down. The roof rests on the beams. The floor is well-packed dirt.
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• Homes are where people live, eat, sleep, are protected from the weather, and enjoy being together. Throughout history, homes have been made of many different things. What was Abraham’s home in Bible times made of? What do you think Lazarus’s, Mary’s, and Martha’s home might have been built from?
• Thick forests in Canada and the United States mean that most of our homes are made from wood. In Japan people used to build the frames of their homes from wood. But they would use thick, waterproof paper to cover screens that made up the walls inside. These could be opened or closed to make a room larger or smaller.
• Long winters in Alaska meant the indigenous people living there used to travel long distances to hunt for food. They would make blocks of hard-packed snow and fit them together into a low, dome-shaped building. It was warm enough inside for family members to take off their outer clothing and sleep on a platform of snow covered with furs and skins.
• Many people today live on houseboats. Little “junks” bob in Hong Kong harbor. And thousands of families in The Netherlands live on houseboats along canals in Amsterdam.
• Nomads move from place to place in countries in the Sahara Desert or the plains of Mongolia. They live in tents that can easily be moved. Many Mongolians still move their herds of yaks, cows, sheep, camels, or goats in search of better pastures. They live in movable homes made of felt and called “yurts.”
• Some people in Southeast Asia live in grass houses. Bamboo is grass. The plants can grow four feet in one day. They can be ready to use in buildings after only five years of growing.
• What other materials can you think of that are used for building homes?
