I assign my students to read a book over the summer. Upon return to class, I have them do this monopoly assignment, which includes a lot of thes story elements of the book they read, and makes them apply what they know/learned. The project is designed to take about 2 weeks or 3 weeks in class and eat up chunks of your afternoon. It's also great for kids to look back at while they're going through their portfolios at the end of the year. They can see how much progress they made since the start of the year. My students do this all in class, but it could be assigned as an at home project. I make the monopoly boards out of half sheets of poster paper (modified number of squares).