Habitat Dioramas

Both our 1st and 3rd graders did a bit more of an "in depth" study on habitats and the other students touched on animal habitats and animal adaptations somewhere along the line.  So we finally got around to doing dioramas for habitats over spring break!

Grade 3- Temperate Forest

She actually had a lot of various animals here.  We had great conversations about the food chain.  :-)  The kids found her baby foxes very cute.  Painted marshmallows! Creative use of real sod for her ground! 

Grade 1:  Ocean

Sand at the bottom, neat "wallpaper" on back.  Hanging fish.  Well-enjoyed by all!

 

 

Grade 2: Desert

Wispy cotton ball clouds, glitter glue sun, oasis, snakes, hard to see behind the Styrofoam cactus but he has a bean mouse.  He has little critters round the inside of the box also.    Sand paper bottom.  Mountain range with shadow.  :-)  His main animal was the snake...so he had the mouse as the snake's prey and he wanted the hawk to be flying as if it was ready to snatch the snake.  So the snake's predator was the hawk.

 

Grade 4: Rain Forest

This is a fun age to do dioramas with.  They really need no assistance and their imagination is great!  He went outside to find rocks.  Saw some things at a dollar store that he thought would be great.  Use moss for the bottom,  Back in the corner is a plastic snake and there are bean eggs in the nest.  He made a nest for the bird on top of a towel tube...neat!

 

Grade 2: Polar

Creative use of the marshmallows!  He told me he found these animals in a workbook he had at home...love that! 

 

We were going to have the preschooler make up a savanna "sensory" tray on the day of the presentations but our presentations came sooner than expected, due to having a "no internet" required day due to data usage limitations.  So it didn't get done.  Oh well.  'Tis the way it goes.

 

Writing2 has a presentation, book review, and research units and we are tying all three of those units into this project.  Fun stuff! 

 

I tried to get pictures of each child doing their presentation but, as usual, only a couple pictures actually turned out.  Why is that?  They look decent on the camera and I get them on the computer and they are blurry, etc.  Lighting, setting, etc are all the same.

Anyway, most of the children did well and enjoyed "presenting".  The 1st grader had a bit more difficulty with it but that comes with practice.  This is something else I'd like to do more of next year.  Creating visuals for their lesson and having them present them to the rest of the group.  This was perfect for the younger grades and reinforcing how to ask questions.  Yes, one would think that this isn't so difficult but the children here had the same difficulties that I saw happening in the K-2 classrooms in brick and mortar.  :-)

 

We had a lot of fun with this!  Next up...our whole group Owl art project!