The House Project is a highlight of the sixth grade year at Milton. Boys and girls look forward to this cross-curricular unit when their math skills come to bear and they can stretch their creative muscles. For several weeks each spring, students design and create a set of plans, from scratch, for a scale model of a New England home, replete with sustainable design and landscaping.

Students begin by measuring areas in their own home: What's the square footage of a bedroom floor? Where are the windows in relation to the floor and ceiling? How much space does a closet door need to open? With that realistic context, they answer questions that will inform their design: Will my house be formal or informal? What are the traffic patterns in my rooms? Is there enough natural light?

Teachers provide their young designers with concrete and realistic parameters within which they must work, and the House Project is chock-full of problem solving opportunities. Students must balance their often-extravagant "wish list" against a budget and feasibility. (Each student must build his or her home within a $275,000 budget, which, they realize, goes quickly when a square foot of kitchen costs $150, and a square foot of bathroom area will set them back $120.) In the midst of the students' bursts of creativity, teachers reinforce the understanding of fractions, geometry, spatial reasoning, measurement, ratio, proportion and scale. To turn their 2D plans into a 3D model, students use Google SketchUp, a 3D software program that combines a tool-set with an intelligent drawing system.

Students complete the project in phases, submitting design proposals, budget expenditures, draft floor plans, the same way that a professional firm would. Like architectural firms of today, they take the need for sustainable building practices very seriously. Pairing with eighth grade students who have studied "green" energy sources in science class, the sixth graders calculate energy costs over the years, should they install solar panels or a wind turbine.

Once students have solid plans, construction week begins. Now careful calculations prove essential and artistic flair comes into play. Parents volunteer their time helping students get to work with rulers, foam board and Exacto Knives, and then with glue, green felt and colorful paints. With carefully managed budgets plotted, students might use their extra money to splurge on a swimming pool, a roof deck, or a tree house to bring their properties to life. Teachers' approaches to the students' ideas are never, "No you can't," but rather, "Why did you choose?"

Their teachers make sure the students know that defining a decision-making opportunity or problem is as important as solving it. They allow the students to recognize frustration, and the fact that trying and falling short—and then going another route—is an inevitable part of the project; most often, this is the part that spurs the most creative, most exciting ideas.

Once construction week is over, and the new Grade 6 neighborhood fills Ware Hall, students spend time in other classes discussing what makes a house a home; they write stories about the home they've created and the family that lives there, why they chose what they did, and they also think about what worked well and what they may have done differently. At the end of this mathematically challenging, stimulating, artistic, interdisciplinary project, students are proud of what they have accomplished.

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