Printable Build Your Own Town – Free Activity for Kids

Looking for a hands-on, creative activity to spark your child’s imagination? This printable Build Your Own Town project is the perfect blend of fun and learning! Last week, my children and I used the book Lentil for our week’s literature-based study.  What fun! This fun Build Your Own Paper Town was the activity that was most loved! My children played with it over and over.

This printable town-building activity lets your children design and build their very own town using just a few simple supplies. It’s ideal for ages 3–9 and will make a great addition to your literature-based homeschool studies.

ETA: This post was originally published in 2014 and revised in 2019. It is revised once again in May 2025. The text of the post was left mostly intact due to sweet memories, although I added a few parts to make it more understandable and give fresh ideas. Enjoy again!

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Literature Tie-In: Lentil by Robert McCloskey

The story of Lentil takes place in a classic, ideal small town setting filled with familiar places: a library, school, church, Main Street, and more. To bring the story to life, my children and I created a hands-on Paper Town that is similar to the one found in Lentil.

I was browsing through Pinterest one night and came upon a mom who drew a small town for her kiddos on a shower curtain.

I thought that would be a perfect activity to go along with our Lentil week!

Since I am not very good at drawing, I decided to make a printable town instead.

There are a multitude of activities that your children could do with the children’s book Lentil. This one can get your ideas flowing!

Supplies for Your Printable Build Your Own Town

To create your own Paper Town, you’ll need the following supplies. You will have most of these items around your house. I only had to purchase the shower curtain.

• A white plastic shower curtain liner – acts as the town’s base; I bought the cheapest one I could find at Wal-Mart
• A black Sharpie for drawing roads
• Matchbox cars, Fisher Price Little People, doll house people or items, any items from TOOB sets (many have trees, plants, or wildlife that would be perfect for this)
• [Free Build Your Own Town Printable Pack – download in this post]
• White cardstock for printing – I have purchased the brand I have linked many times over the years and am always satisfied
• Scissors and crayons or markers

How to Build Your Own Paper Town

After gathering your supplies, print the .pdf of the Paper Town found at the end of this post. I would advise you to print the town buildings on white cardstock and not copy paper since the cardstock will hold up better over multiple play times.

After printing, spend a few minutes cutting out the pieces your children would like to use in their town.  Simply cut along the gray lines.

This is great scissor skills practice if you have younger children!

Next, color each of the buildings and bushes as desired.

Then draw “roads” on your shower curtain. Since Lentil is based in town – not out in the country – I created city blocks.

Now for the fun part – build the town!

There are lots of big decisions to make:
Should the police station be near the school?  
Where should the library go?  
Will the hotel be in the center of the city or on the outskirts?

After arranging your town buildings, find all of the Little People, match box cars, doll house furniture, and any other items that would make this town even more exciting!

Your children’s imaginations will run wild with all of the possibilities!

Even though it took up an enormous amount of floor space (our whole school room floor – which isn’t very big to start with!), I left our shower curtain town on the floor for the whole week we read Lentil.

The kids would sit and play in the town for 10 minutes (or an hour!) and then sit again later for awhile and drive cars from building to building.

We had so much fun building our own town.  I hope you do too!

You can download the Printable Build Your Own Town activity here:

Download the Printable Build Your Own Town Activity

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Lauren Hill is a Christian homeschooling mom of 5, ages 20 to 8. She created this Build Your Own Town printable as part of a literature-based Lentil unit in her homeschool. With over 15 years of experience in classical education, she shares practical and engaging activities for Preschool and Elementary learners at Mama’s Learning Corner.

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Lauren Hill

Lauren Hill is a Christian mom to 5, ages 19 to 7. She homeschools her children in the classical education tradition and is currently in her 15th year of homeschool. She creates engaging worksheets and hands-on printable activities for Preschool and Elementary age children to supplement their daily studies.

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