Recently we've been reading the book Diary of a Wombat by Jackie French and Bubble has become intrigued by the fact that some animals live under the ground. Last night I made her a simple diorama that hangs on the wall and we played a sorting game using animals that do and don't live underground. Not only did Bubble enjoy it but so did Squeak, so we'll be leaving it up on the wall for awhile! WE USED: * scrap cardboard * small shoebox with a hinged lid (could also use an unhinged box but attach one side of the lid with tape. Or use no lid at all!) * coloured paper (green and blue) * glue * paint (brown) * wooden building blocks * animal pictures * tape/blutack To create our animals I taped animal pictures to wooden building blocks. The diorama was made using a side cut from a box. I glued a small shoebox at the base and then glued blue and green coloured paper to both to represent sky and grass. To reveal the 'underground' area the girls just had to lift the lid on the shoebox. I painted a burrow inside the box and we talked a lot about how the different underground animals dug their holes and why they might live there. We'll be decorating the backgrounds over the next week and also adding 'animals that fly' to our diorama too. The animals that live above ground stood on the box. The animals that live underground went inside the box. The girls played with this for a long time. I'm glad I hung it in their doll play area because I can see it becoming involved in their imaginary play in many other ways too.
