Animal Habitats – Page 2 – Butterbees and Bumbleflies

Ocean Habitat

This month I’ve been talking on Tuesdays about our animal habitat boxes. Hard to believe we’ve just got one more week in this series! I hope you are enjoying the ideas I’ve been sharing. If you’ve missed any of them, here are the links:

Arctic/Antarctic Habitats – Dinosaur Habitat – Farm Habitat

So today is the Ocean! Becca’s favorite habitat. She is obsessed with learning more and more about the ocean. She loves watching Octonauts on Disney Jr, reading ocean books, and of course, taking care of our tank of saltwater marine life. She would live at Sea World if she could.

The best part about these habitat boxes for me is that they take about three minutes to throw together. And for a Mommy who works from home, that three minute prep for an activity that will occupy her for 20+ minutes, is GOLDEN. So here’s what you’ll need:

colored rice (I used the blue and green rice mix that we already had together from our Colored Rice Sensory tray activity – KEEP everything, Mommy. Just throw it in a bag when your kiddo is “done” and pull it back out a couple months later. Keep everything.)

a storage box

Safari Ltd Toob (here are a couple great options):
Safari Ltd Ocean TOOB

Safari Ltd Coral Reef TOOB

Safari Ltd Baby Sea Life TOOB

Extension – get this Toob and make it be a shark box! Safari Ltd Sharks TOOB

A different idea for your older child learning about the various levels of the ocean – color your rice black and purple and get this Toob: Safari Ltd. Deep Sea Creatures

Farm Habitat

In our continuing series on various habitat sensory boxes (visit the Arctic/Antarctic here / visit my dino habitat here), this week I’m sharing our Farm Habitat with you!

We love the Safari Ltd Toob animals – and have a great little set called the “Petting Zoo” which includes two kids dressed in overalls (one holding a bottle) and several animals – most of which are farm animals. So, I pulled out the farm animals and I’m using them for this habitat. Then, I dumped the stuffing mix (from my sensory cooking post last year) into the box as their farm yard and added the animals and kids! Easy peasy, and super fun!! She loves making the animals “eat” the “hay” as she calls it. 🙂

Looking for additional farm fun for your kids? We love this little set of Melissa & Doug puzzles, as well as our farm train set that Santa brought to our two this Christmas!
Melissa & Doug Deluxe Farm in a Box Jigsaw Puzzles
KidKraft Farm Train Set

Dinosaur Habitat

The next few Tuesdays, I’ll be sharing some fun habitat sensory boxes with you. Becca absolutely loved her Arctic and Antarctic boxes that I made back in December, so I decided to make her some more small boxes!

Due to a lack of good storage/organization/planning on my part, we have a TON of wild bird seed. So it made a perfect base for her Dinosaur habitat! Add in a dinosaur Toob (Safari Ltd Dinos TOOB aff link here), a couple of palm trees from Party City, and you’re good to go!

“ROAR!”

Animal Habitat Sensory Play

The day after Thanksgiving, we got to spend a tiny little bit of time with my best friend and her family at their home, and I got an idea from her that has become one of Becca’s all-time-best-loved “actiperies” (she can totally say activities now, but she still calls them actiperies b/c she knows I think it’s cute. ha!). She has always had a big fascination with animals and their homes, but this takes it to a whole new level… so thank you, Rena, for the inspiration!!

Arctic Habitat

What you need:
Storage Container
Flour
Sugar
Powdered Sugar
Corn Starch
Safari Ltd Arctic TOOB (aff link – thank you!)

It’s super simple – use a little bit of each of the first four ingredients and stir it up in a container. Then add your Arctic TOOB animals, eskimos, and igloo, and you are ready to play!

An old toothbrush made a fun addition, and great fine motor practice – as she decided to brush the snow off of the animals and people.

Antarctic Habitat

What you need:
Storage Container
Rock Salt (I used Ice Cream Maker Salt… b/c it was on hand)
Kosher Salt
Table Salt
Safari Ltd Penguins TOOB

Same as above – add some salt and stir up in a container, add your penguins, and you’re ready to play!

We also added some play “snow” from our ornaments project because she really wanted to make it snow on the penguins. 🙂

If you’d like, you can print out the maps and titles I made to tape to your lids.
FREE PRINTABLE HERE!

Enjoy! And be prepared – the Arctic box’s “snow” might make dark clothes turn white. 😉