Animal Habitats: It's a Zoo Out There!!!

So, we know that a lot of our students may be designing zoos or animal habitats.  Or maybe animal habitats in zoos.  Either way, there are several ways to create a habitat - drawing, painting, etc.  Our favorite way is to make a "mock up" or three-dimensional plan using papier-mâché. It sounds fancy because it's a French word, but it really means mashed paper and is used all over the world.
We decided to make a habitat for our toy dinosaurs and we were inspired by Jurassic Park!!  However, this process can work for any landform - deserts, mountains, rainforests, and more! Just remember this process takes a couple of days because of the drying time between processes.

Now let's break it down!

First, things, first - Make Your Own Paste!!!
You must use some type of glue to make your landform and this is an easy recipe using only water and flour.  Add a pinch of salt to keep your papier-mâché from growing mold in our humid climate.

Now begin your work on the landform:

While your paste is cooling, grab your base and start wadding up newspaper to create landforms such as mountains, hills, icebergs, river basins, etc.  If you are making a volcano, place it in the middle and surround it with crumpled paper.

Add even more paper and make sure to really squish it!

Now use some tape to put everything in place and keep it there!

            

Tear some additional paper into strips and grab that cooled paste.  Dip strips of paper into the paste and run the strip between two fingers to make sure you aren't using too much glue!!                  We've included a video below to help you out with this step because it's pretty important. 

When you have used at least 5 layers of paper all throughout your landform, you will need to let it dry for a day or so. If you leave it out in the sunshine it can dry out pretty quickly. When it is dry, start to paint your landform with tempera paint, acrylic paint, or even latex paint (house paint).

              

        After you've painted it, add some details that you would find in the habitat, like trees and rocks.

 

                              

                        We added sand because our habitat is an island!!

To finish our "mock up", we placed dinosaurs on our papier-mâché island and filled the bottle with baking soda, dish detergent, and vinegar to create an explosion.  
Check out this tutorial for more help or to just get an overview of the process.  Good luck and share your results!!!