The purpose of this Warm-up is to familiarize students with tiny houses and encourage them to think about the area of a tiny house, which will be useful when students design a tiny house in a later activity. While students may notice and wonder many things about the images, the fact that the tiny houses are very small and cover small areas are the important discussion points.

• “All of these are types of tiny houses, which are houses that are usually under 400 square feet. What might be some reasons for choosing to build or live in a tiny house?” (It is less expensive to build. It works for those who live alone or don't want a lot of space. It is good for the environment because it takes up less space in nature.)
• “Tiny houses come in many forms or types. Some are small cabins, but some are built out of shipping containers and even school buses (as in the last image).”
• “What could be some advantages of each type? What could be some disadvantages of each type?” (A shipping container would be strong, but it could rust and could be challenging to create windows and doors. A cabin would be kind of like building a regular house. It could have 2 stories and could be made bigger, but some people might not like the look of a cabin. The school bus is mobile, so it wouldn’t have to stay in one spot, but there are a bunch of windows that would need to be covered.)

• “Tell me how you decided on the amount of space you included for ________.”
• “How could we use a yardstick (or a ruler or a tape measure) to get a sense of the size of the space?”