The Shoebox Habitat gets an UPGRADE (and hopefully an A-Grade)

Fuggetabout the old-school shoebox habitat!

My daughter Mikaela was given an assignment by her 3rd grade teacher Mrs. Nesbitt and asked to create a shoebox diorama that depicts one of the habitats or environments they are currently studying. This is an age-old project that I remember doing when I was in school.

The instructions were to choose a habitat from the Appalachian Mountains, Coastal Plain (near the Atlantic Ocean), swamp, rivers, valleys, ponds or forests.

Mikaela chose the Coastal Plain and since I’m a Philly gal it seemed only right to create a habitat that was the spitting image of AC. (that’s Atlanta City for all you southern folks!)

And I figured the shoebox needed an upgrade because it’s just too small to get all the items inside the box. So we instead used a big ole’ diaper box!

I took Mikaela to Michael’s craft store and we went to town grabbing up pieces to create a beach scene. We bought real sand, wooden dolphins and fish, crab stickers and seahorse stickers, real sea shells, stickers for seagulls and wooden lizards and turtles! We added a little pizzazz to it by adding in a beach chair, towel, umbrella, sunglasses and a wooden picket fence to give the environment a real beach feel.

I also printed out a color picture of a boardwalk scene with a carnival backdrop and we glued it to the back of the box. Mikaela laid all the pieces on the “beach” and I did most of the gluing so the pieces would stay in place. We also laid down blue paper for the ocean. We found stickers that actually look like waves and placed them on the blue paper along with the fishes and dolphins. The end result, as you can see is quite a new take on an “old” project.

I’m so proud of Mikaela because she always takes her assignments a step further. She always wants to be the top student and she never settles for anything BUT the best. I’m glad she feels like her work is that important to her and that she takes so much pride in producing a great product.

She just an amazing kid and I was so happy to do this project with her and share in her joy. That’s the joy of being a Cincomom.