Home learning: Making a ‘Great Fire of London’ house

Sophie has been learning about the Great Fire of London in school recently. Her half-term project was to make a 1666 house to take to school for them to recreate the Great Fire of London. What a great way to bring history to life – although it is a shame that her efforts are destined to end up in flames! She had fun making the house though. Here’s how we created our 1666 house:

You will need

A small cardboard box for the bottom half
A larger house-shaped box for the top half (we used a Happy Meal box but there are plenty of templates online if you don’t have anything similar)
Two pieces of cardboard for the roof
White paper
Paper straws
Craft sticks
Black card for the windows
Brown/gold card for the door
White (optional), black and red paint
A silver marker pen
Paintbrushes
Scissors
Glue

1) Glue white paper to cover the small cardboard box. Repeat with the larger box. Paint the sides with white paint (or glue on a second layer of white paper).

2) Paint the sloping top of the larger box red.

3) Cut two pieces of cardboard that are slightly longer than the sloping sides of the larger box. Paint these red.

4) Flatten the paper straws. Paint one side of the flattened paper straws and the craft sticks with black paint.

5) Cut out a rectangle from brown/gold card to make the door. Glue to the smaller white box.

6) Cut out rectangle shapes for the windows. Draw criss-cross diagonal lines on these with a silver marker pen. Glue in place on sides of the two white boxes.