Have you tried out the “Fratelli di Zampa” questionaire to see which animal your child is like?
I tried it out the other afternoon with my two little cubs and discovered that I have a baby panda and polar bear living in my house! After completing the questionaire, my 7 year old polar bear asked me if the WWF site had games on it:( I tried to use the opportunity to explain that the WWF plays an important role in protecting endangered animals by creating habitats where they can live. She seemed okay with the explanation but then she asked me: “What is a habitat?”. After this question I decided that I needed to change tactics.
I had her lay down on the floor and close her eyes and imagine where she would like to live if she were a wild animal. First we started with trees – lots of tall trees like oak and pine. Then she added blue skies and butterflies. Her finishing touch was – wild mushrooms???? Kids are strange some times. But then when I thought about it for a moment I realized that she had described where were usually spend our summer vacations near Lake Como. Such a beautiful place needed to be transformed into a project and I decided to make an Enchanted Forest diorama using lots of fun craft ideas that I had seen recently online.
You will need:
Small cardboard box (shoe boxes are perfect)
Acrylic Paint
Brown Sand
Clay
Colored Paper
Glue
LET’S GET STARTED!
Step 1: Paint your cardboard box blue on the inside and outside. Then paint the side that you want to be the “floor” of your forest brown. While the brown paint is still wet cover with brown sand.
Step 2: We had watched a bunch of Martha Stewart videos on decoupage recently and decided to use her approach in creating the background to our forest. We added butterflies and pine trees.
Step 3: The Disney FamilyFun site has a great idea how to turn an old brown bag (we used one from the fruit store) into a 3D tree. They did it for Halloween without leaves but we fixed that by cutting out lots of little green leaves and gluing them all over the branches.
Step 4: We also made another recycled tree following the instructions posted here.
Step 5: Our final touch was to make lots of miniature mushrooms using a post on WikiHow. We decide to use red and white clay to make the mushrooms more realistic. Remember if use colored clay start with the light colors and wash your hands really well.
Our forest habitat was completed.
Try it out with your kids and see what fun things your cubs add to their personalized habitats. A good site for explaining habitats is the WWF site.
Remember that summer is a great time to introduce your children to the importance of protecting MOTHER EARTH!
take care
Alison
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