Habitat Dioramas

We are wrapping up our Answers in Genesis 12 week study on animals this week.  We have LOVED this unit and had so much fun diving into all the different kinds of God's creation.  I decided to wrap up the unit by having the children choose an animal to make a habitat diorama about.  Xavier chose the giraffe and Natalee chose the penguin.  We started our dioramas by researching their habitats...we pulled books off the shelf here at home, youtubed some videos and made a trip to the library.  The library had great Zoobooks about both animals that were the most helpful of the resources we used.

Then...

we dove in.

I actually had planned to do this in stages...paper the backgrounds one day, do the skies another, and the land the day after.  The kids had other ideas.  Once they started they couldn't stopped.  They were SO excited.  How do you argue with eager education like that?  And so....we just kept on.

Before I knew it, 2 hours had passed...

Xavier REALLY got into this and his box is very independently done.  He had some help with the papering of the sides of his box and I showed him how to make the stand up grass...the rest was pretty much him! 

I suggested he find a circle to make the sun and he traced and cut it all by himself.  I showed him how to use moisture to stick the fun noodles together and he designed and constructed the trees.  He even made them custom height for each of his giraffes.

The yellow tissue paper is "straw grass" and the brown strips he put in as dirt.  "Africa isn't all just grass" as he told me.

Did you know that a mama giraffe, when provoked by a lion threatening to attack her calf, can and will completely kick the lion's head off with her strong legs?  That's just some fun info.  Otherwise giraffes are mostly peaceful animals.

 

After we took pictures, Xavier found "real" fake grass and bigger "boulder" rocks to add to his diorama.  

I'm glad we had the plastic giraffes and penguins in our animal bucket already.  That was handy!

Natalee had very good ideas for her box.  She knew how she wanted it to look and only needed help planning and executing her ideas.  I measured her background papers for her and she did the cutting and gluing.

I took direction from her on how to cut the styrofoam "ice blocks" with my sharp knife so that they fit where she wanted and she used some white fun noodles to make ice and snow.

She enjoyed putting clouds in her sky but opted against a sun as the books we read didn't have much bright sunshine in them.

She tried to cut tiny fish from construction paper, which ended in great frustration, so after she asked for help I cut her a stack. 

 She threw them in the ocean for the penguins to catch.

I did not anticipate the amount of time the children would spend playing with their dioramas.  I've glued and re-glued the trees on Xavier's African safari numerous times already.

 

This was a FUN project for all of us!

I intend to keep the dioramas until the big spring homeschool fine arts fair so the children can display them for family to see.  It might take a lot of glue to make it until April!