What to do with a box: Nature Museum

  We were living on an island up in Washington a couple years ago, when my sister gave my son a copy of  Animal Habitats by Judy Press.  This book information and some crafts to go with each of the common North American habitats.  I consider myself craft challenged, so this was a great gift, especially since she sent quite a few of the materials with it.    We worked with water habitats right away, and as we moved around the country have made a collages featuring our local habitats in each new home.

We had not done any thing in our latest home yet, and it was the perfect afternoon for a walk, so I invited my kids to pick up some artifacts as we wandered in the wooded part of our complex.  My thought was that we could put some real objects on our mural and then do a few crafts as well.

Then my son picked up this.

He was pretty intentional about it, and I had to admit that bark is a key component of any woodland.  However, there was no way the bark would hang on a paper mural.  

Solution, a card board box museum.  When we got home from our walk, I cut an extra slit in the back for light and used hot glue to attach some of our treasures to the walls.

My son chose to do the raccoon mask from the book.

My daughter made a mommy and a baby caterpillars.  I tried to explain that there really are not mommy caterpillars, that they turn into butterflies.  She replied that this one was not real so it would never be a butter fly, always a caterpillar.   Critical thinking skills, check.

Here is our museum after a day's work. Both children are excited about this new take on a project we have done a few times, so I expect we'll be adding to it in the coming days.

For more fun ideas on how to use up your extra boxes check out this collection organized by P is for Preschooler.

For those who are interested, this project addresses Next Generation Science Standard

2-LS4-1.	Make observations of plants and animals to compare the diversity of life in different habitats.

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