Top 10 Free Lesson Plans & Activities

1. Amazing Skyscrapers

Kids will learn basic ideas used by engineers and architects to design some of the world’s largest skyscrapers in this lively lesson from DiscoverySchool.com. At the end of the class, the students will use their research and scale drawings to create a skyline in the school hallway.

2. Bag Buildings

Using paper bags, young children create puppets and masks that illustrate famous buildings or buildings in their neighborhoods. Wearing their paper bag creations, the children become talking buildings and tell about their history and architecture. This fun, low-budget activity is one of several free architecture lesson plans from the Tennessee Heritage Education Network.

3. Build a Bridge

From the Public Broadcasting television show, Nova, this site lets kids build bridges based on four different scenarios. School children will enjoy the graphics, and the Web site also has a teacher's guide and links to other helpful resources. Teachers can supplement the bridge-building activity by showing the Nova film Super Bridge, which chronicles the building of the Clark Bridge over the Mississippi River.

4. Roadside Architecture

A gas station shaped like a tea pot. A hotel that looks like a Native American wigwam. In this lesson, students examine amusing examples of roadside architecture and colossal advertising sculptures built in the 1920s and 1930s. Students are then invited to design their own examples of roadside architecture. This free lesson plan is just one of dozens from the Teaching With Historic Places series offered by the National Register of Historic Places.

5. Modern Makeovers

This simple lesson for grades 6 through 12 introduces concepts of modern architecture by inviting students to redesign and modernize an older building for the 21st century. The Museum of Modern Art in New York City is used as a model. For hundreds of free lesson plans like this one, visit New York Times Lesson Plan Archive. You can search for lessons by key word or browse by subject area.

6. Great Place / Lousy Place

Through a series of activities that can be adapted to many different grade levels, children and teens learn how to evaluate community design. The students write about their own neighborhoods, draw buildings and streetscapes, and interview residents. This and many other community design lesson plans are free from the American Planning Association.

7. Draw Your House

Young children begin to explore shape and proportion through this simple art activity. The students first look at and discuss several famous paintings of homes. They then draw and paint their own houses or apartment buildings. This free art activity is one of several that you'll find on the Art Sparkers Web site.

8. Tower of Hanoi

Don't be fooled by this online game. Invented in 1883 by the French mathematician Edouard Lucas, the Tower of Hanoi is a complex pyramid puzzle. Whether they play online or using simple paper cutouts, students will stretch their spatial skills and reasoning abilities. This free activity is one of several available on the GEMS (Great Explorations in Math and Science) Web site.

9. Create A Landmark Calendar

Working with photographers and graphic artists, students create and publish a 12-month calendar that features local architectural sites and landmarks. This activity is from a collection ofarchitecture lesson plans by The Center for Understanding the Built Environment (CUBE). Be sure to click on "Intro Lesson Images" for helpful illustrations.

10. Design Process Checklist

The Design Process Checklist was developed by the Boston Society of Architects for their Learning By Design program. Following this checklist, students in grades 4 through 12 plan their dream homes, draw scale floor plans, and build models. Spending six to eight weeks on their dream home designs, the students use drafting boards, T-squares, triangles, and other professional architectural tools.