Just came across a school project we did for our middle daughter when she was in middle school and needed to make a 3-D model of a feudal manor. To make a bunch of buildings in a hurry, I took a piece of 2x2" (which is really 1.5"x1.5"), set my circular saw to a 45 degree angle and sawed off one corner. I also saved the sawdust. Then I rotated the piece and sawed off another corner to get a house-shaped profile. Then I sawed many cuts across the length of the thing to cut it into a series of "house shapes." This was by no means a carefully measured project, as you can tell, but that doesn't reduce its charm IMHO.
Someone with a wood shop, of course, could do a much "cleaner" sawing job, of course.
Then we sanded the ends to make them smooth enough to paint (mostly), painted them with muted acrylic colors (since they were supposed to be "realistic") used black marker and white craft ink pen to draw windows, and glued sawdust to the roof of most of them.
After the assignment was done, we disposed of the landscape part of the project but saved the houses. Now that same daughter is teaching High School English three hours away. When we found the little houses (looking for something else, of course), we just HAD to send them home with her for a tiny Christmas display somewhere.
The houses in the photo are about 1.5" tall and wide. It seems like a project any adult with a circular saw, taking reasonable precautions not to saw your fingers off could do for a roomfull of kids at virtually no cost.
Attachment:
mini_houses.jpg [ 59.49 KiB | Viewed 8102 times ]