Begin by taking the cover from your shoe-box. Place the box upon the table before you so that it stands upon one long side, with its bottom part facing you, open at the back. The base of your box, which now faces you, will be the part of the school which will need to have windows made in it.
These two windows must have blinds. The window spaces must be located on the face of the box, which fronts you. From these the blinds are cut. Two inches from either end of your box, mark upon the part which faces you two oblongs, each three inches high and two inches wide. Mark a vertical line down the center of each window space. This forms the blinds, which you will need to cut. (For cutting blinds, see [Diagram One, B], page 166.) Cut the top line, down the center line, and across the base line. Press the two sections of cardboard outward against the sides of the box building, and you will have made the window with blinds. Color these blinds, if you choose. Use crayons or water-color paints.
Next, you will need to make the cardboard side walls which support the box-cover roof. Take your sheet of cardboard and measure with pencil outline upon it the shape of one end of your box. Add to this four inches at the top, and cut this piece from the cardboard with its added height.
Make a second piece of cardboard identical with the first. Glue each to one end of the box upright. Cut from each the front upper corner point. (See [Diagram Three, A], page 168, which shows the shape of the side walls when cut.)
Cut a door in one of these side walls, near its central part, where you see the door in the picture of Boxville School. To make this, first take pencil and ruler and make an oblong four inches high and two inches wide. (To cut door, see [Diagram Two, A], page 167.) Cut top line, down one side line, and across the base line. Fold the door outward. The cardboard under the door in the side wall may be cut out the shape of the door space. If you do this, your door will bend open more easily.
If you happen to have a round-headed paper-fastener, press its pointed prongs through the little door where a door-knob should go. The round head of the paper-fastener will form a door-knob. Its prongs, bent to one side, form the latch. It will catch the door securely when the “door-knob” is turned.
Now that the lower part of the school building is finished, you may begin upon the roof. This is the box cover. Place it upon the points of the side walls so that it fits down upon them. You will readily see how this is. (For placing a roof on a shoe-box building, see [Diagram Three, AA], page 168.)
When the roof is placed, you will be able to judge where the chimney-hole should be cut in the box-cover roof. It should go near the top at the end of the box that is opposite the door. The cover of some narrow box which has a sliding inner drawer will make the chimney. It will be just the right shape, square and hollow.
Mark off upon the sides of this box the bricks of the chimney. Color them red, if you like. If you use a ruler, the work is easily and quickly done. You do not need to mark the bricks unless you like. Your box may be painted merely.
To place it on the roof, you will need to cut out of the school-house roof a piece of cardboard the size of the end of your box. Decide where the chimney should go. Mark the end of it with pencil upon the roof at this point. Cut the cardboard out. (For cutting hole for chimney in a box-cover roof, see [Diagram Three, AA], page 168.) Press the end of the chimney down through this hole. Press the chimney backward to make it stand straight, and glue it. Some tiny bit of cotton stuffed into the upper hole of the chimney box will form smoke.