1st grade animal habitat project

For her animal habitat project Olivia had to choose an animal to learn about and bring in a shoebox diorama. Of course she chose octopus, which has been one of her favorite animals for the longest time. This project was posing some difficulty since making an under water ocean floor habitat was not as easy as first imagined. Thankfully after a few days of trying to figure out how to make her vision come to life we finally figured out how we'd make the habitat. We began with a nice square box which I cut out the front to make it seem like you were looking through a window to see the bottom of the ocean. We had her use some blue wrapping paper to cover the whole box making it blue like the ocean. Then Daddy's idea of filling the bottom with plaster so her rocky cave could be built was next. Olivia went on the hunt for the perfect rocks to use and found some sand in the garage for the ocean floor. Daddy mixed the plaster and they worked together putting the rocks and seaweed like plants in the box. Since the sand didn't really mix in the plaster well they decided to just pour a thin amount on top after the plaster dried. While everything was setting Olivia worked on the 5 facts about her octopus. She typed it up, printed it, cut it to shape and taped it to the back of the box. A few days later the plaster was super set and ready for her to place her sea animals. She chose two octopus, starfish, eels, dolphins and a few other ones. We used little plastic sea creatures I bought in a package from the dollar store. I think the selection changed several times before we actually took it to school.

This was far too heavy for her to carry the few blocks to school so I helped her. She was so proud that she couldn't wait to show everyone her "sea view" octopus box. She did quite well on her grade. I'm proud she was so eager to tell everyone all about her favorite animal the octopus.