A few months ago my husband found a small turtle that we decided to keep as a pet. It has been a wonderful opportunity to learn about caring for an animal. Plus it’s been great for learning what is needed for different habitats. This river small world habitat is a great way to learn about life in and around the rivers.

Explore this river small world habitat with your kids!

Materials needed for a river small world habitat:

To create the river small world we first started by creating the river bed from aluminum foil. I did a double layer of the foil to ensure that it was sturdy and wouldn’t leak if it got a small puncture.

I put the “river” in the middle of our plastic tub and then let the kids take total control of the rest of the project.

We did some brainstorming of things that would be needed in a river habitat. This is what they thought of:

Water

Rocks and small pebbles

Dirt

Grass

Trees

Sand

Fish (Jaida wanted real ones, I politely declined)

Sticks

Then they went out to the backyard to assemble the small world.

Create a river small world with your kids and talk about the habitats of river wildlife.

They ended up digging a hole in the yard (mental note to tell hubby to fill that in…) and gathering some of the weeds from the garden.

Create a river small world with your kids and talk about the habitats of river wildlife.

They also used some leaves from the random small trees that line our yard and picked up some small sticks from the burn pile.

Create a river small world with your kids and talk about the habitats of river wildlife.

After they filled in the sides of the river to create the river banks, they decided that the river needed a dam, so they started building one out of mud only discover that it needed more reinforcement.

river-small-world-fb

They added some sticks to the dam to help hold it together and then filled the upper portion of the river. With some manipulation, they were able to get the dam to hold for a little while.

Create a river small world with your kids and talk about the habitats of river wildlife.

After that they were able to see a great example of erosion!

We didn’t have it on hand today, but you can add this river animal TOOB for more fun. We’ll be playing with this over the next few days and I’m excited to see what they’ll think of next!

river-toys

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Find even more engaging activities in the Life Over C’s shop!

habitat river sensory bin
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