The Shoebox Diorama of Congo Rain Forest

Guest Post by my 9-year Old Daughter, Rylie, my co-author at Kids e-Connection blog.

I made this Congo Rain Forest diorama as a science project for school.  It came out pretty well and I got 100 on it.  For the materials I went to Hobby Lobby. I managed to find some things that would go well with the project.  I got a material called, Clump Foliage, and that was used for the leaves, bushes, treetops, and shrubs.  I also picked up a little pack of rain forest animals. I only used three animals, I focused more on the  hippopotamus, the mountainous gorilla, and the okapi, which is a rain forest deer.  Then, I hot glued those down, I ended up putting the hippo on the top of the mountain by the waterfall, the gorilla munching on the greenery kind of hidden behind a tree, and lastly the okapi out in the open going to drink some water.

 Now we will take it back to the beginning and I will show you, or tell you in this case, how I made the mountain for the waterfall to drizzle down.I first took drew out a design for the mountain.  Then I found some scraps of card board and hot glued them in the formation of my design.  I made a paste with flour and glue, and watered it down with some warm water. I ripped some strips of magazines and used a technique called paper mache.  I covered it with the glue coated paper and let it dry.

 Next I tested out how I was going to make the waterfall. So, I took some wax paper and cut a big square.  I then took my hot glue gun and made wiggly lines next to each other on it and it formed like a stream.  I made two big streams, one little square, and a big patch for the lake area.  I ended up using about four sticks of glue, but it was worth it for the great end result. I had to add some miniature jungle trees to make it look like a jungle and not just a waterfall.  I succeeded by making them with little twigs and the clump foliage.  I took some twigs from outside and hot glued some of the foliage on. I made four and hot glued those down.Then I scattered some foliage around to look like vines and other plants. 

 I had printed out a few sheets of facts beforehand and made some information sheets out of green card stock and simply wrote down some facts either side if the box.  I found this map of Africa and glued it to the back and circled where the Congo is located.

 I also made fact sheets on the animals too.  Again with the card stock I wrote some facts.  O covered those with foliage and glued them on.  I put the hippo facts on the rock face, the gorilla facts on the wall with some vines, and the okapi facts by the water.

Here are the gorilla facts...

And the okapi's...

And finally, the hippo's...

I hope that you like my writing and presentation.  Please feel free to leave  me your thoughts on what I could improve on as an aspiring  writer and  artist.  Thank you!