DIY Animal Homes Models

Children are naturally attracted to animals, whether they are cartoons, stuffed animals or real ones. Learning about animal homes or habitat is regular part of all preschool curricula. Building models of animal homes with the child is a fun activity and good learning experience too! In class, this activity helps in the development of several skills in the child.

Here are some examples of animal homes that we helped our son make –

Farm Animals

Materials Used – Play dough

1. Take hardboard as the base.

2. First you have to make the base of the model. This is the most difficult and time consuming part. Put glue on the base and using a rolling pin, roll the play dough and place it on the base.

3. At the other end, make a small pond with blue coloured dough in the same way.

4. Cover the rest of the base with a different color.

5. Use very good quality play dough, otherwise it will not be easy to roll the play dough. I used ELC Soft Stuff for this model.

6. Once your base is done, you can make the animals or use readymade moulds to make the animals. I used ELC moulds and my son made all the models. This was the fun part as he kept on singing “Old Macdonald had a farm …” and made all the animals.

7. For placing the animals cut a toothpick into small pieces and pierce one end of the toothpick into the bottom of the animal and the other end on the base. This is to keep the animals steady and in one place.

8. You can further decorate by making flowers and trees.

9. Last thing to do is to make the fence using ice cream sticks which are just inserted into the base.

Horse Stable

Materials used – Cardboard

1. Take hardboard as the base. Cover it with paper to show the ground. I used brown handmade paper. You can also paint it if you like.

2. For the stable, I took a cardboard box of a toy which was there at home.

3. I cut out two windows on the sides.

4. From the front flaps I cut the top flap and discarded it. The other flap was used as a door of the stable.

5. I covered the stable with handmade coloured paper from inside and outside. You can also paint it if you like it. My son helped in this phase.

6. The stable was then stuck onto the hardboard base with fevicol.

7. For the fencing, I used pieces of wooden building blocks and joined them with ice cream sticks.

8. On one corner, I put some pebbles and placed some grass on it.

9. In the end, I put some toy horses on the base using fevicol.

Fish Home

Materials used – Cardboard

1. Take a used old cardboard box. I used a toy box.

2. Remove the top flaps from the box.

3. Stick paper on the inside and outside of the box. I used blue coloured paper for outside and textured paper for inside.

4. I made some sea weeds using pipe cleaners.

5. In the end, my son placed different fishes. I had some foam stickers which I used here. You can also stick pictures. The best thing would be you can ask your child to draw and color fishes and stick them.

If you find these ideas useful, do share with your friends!

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