DIY Animal Diorama

It has been raining here for daaaaaaaays. My kids and I were all going a little stir-crazy so we decided to raid our craft cupboard and make something fun. The result? A super simple animal diorama!

Once a month, I try to choose a simple theme to build activities around for the kids. The theme can be anything (a colour, a specific letter of the alphabet, an animal, a simple concept). The theme I pick dictates what types of library books we take out, what types of games we play, what songs we sing, what crafts we make, what colouring pages we choose, etc. For example, we did an ocean theme awhile back. We read lots of ocean books, learned about specific animals in the ocean, sang some fun songs about water, made squid and turtle crafts, and watched a few ocean shows. I don't always stick to the theme...and it doesn't have to be anything elaborate or time-consuming. I just found that when I had something to go off of, it was easier to think of things to do with the kids.

This month our theme is "habitats". We've been busy colouring pictures of different types of habitats and reading about different kinds of animals. I inherited a set of "Getting to Know...Nature's Children" books and, while they are really old and a little out-dated, they are perfect for young kids. I also printed out a little sorting activity in which the kids match up different pictures of animals to the habitat they live in. My 5 year old loves to do this activity independently and my younger kids love to do it with me! You can find this activity online from Kiddy Charts here: https://www.kiddycharts.com/printables/animal-habitats-sorting-game-for-kids/

Making an animal diorama seemed like the perfect way to reinforce the concept of habitats through play. When the kids helped me create it, we talked about what types of terrain certain animals live in, what types of habitats we should create, etc. It only took us about 10 minutes to throw together but has resulted in hours of play. As you can see from the pictures, our grassland section is quite the stretch of the imagination but they love it!

Materials we used for the diorama:

• Large plastic tote with low sides (you can use any old box...I just happened to be spring cleaning and emptied this one)

• Material from old clothing

• Rocks (collected from outside and Dollarama also sells a big bucket of them)

• Blue/clear gems (also from Dollarama)

• Fake moss

• Fake greenery

• Playdough (used as a base to hold up the "trees")

• Animal Figures (Dollarama)

Aside from one bucket of small, smooth stones I purchased from Dollarama, we had all these materials hanging around the house. The best part about setting this up in a plastic tote was that it has a lid. At the end of the day, we snap the lid on and put it away for the next day! If you don't have a plastic tote, it can be really fun to use cardboard boxes. My kids made an ocean diorama awhile ago and had so much fun painting their boxes and gluing in tissue paper coral etc. The possibilities are endless!