Construction Paper Safari World

This small world was only meant to be a simple one and once they started playing it went in a completely new and unexpected direction that even I wouldn't have thought of. For that reason alone, I am so glad that I create things like this for my kids that encourage creativity and imagination. :)

The reason I wanted to make a "flat world" is because sometimes it's tough to play in a bin or a bucket. Munchkin doesn't like when his animals are stuck in a bin and he can't walk them out without taking them out of the world. So I wanted to make it easier for him to play in a world that was open. It worked splendidly! He thoroughly enjoyed playing in this safari world. Bean also had a ton of fun, but she created her own story out of it. And although my thoughts while making this were, "this isn't going to survive the night," I was pleasantly surprised that none of the paper was ripped or destroyed and this little safari can be used again tomorrow. :)

For this project, all I needed was 5 sheets of green construction paper, 1 sheet of blue construction paper, a glue stick, tape and scissors.

1)  I taped 4 of the sheets of construction paper together. I lined them up and taped them while they were pressed against each other. I didn't overlap any of the paper.

2) I cut out the shapes of rivers from the blue sheet of construction paper. We needed two and I made sure that the second river lined up with the first river. Then I glued them to the green construction paper.

3) I used the last sheet of green construction paper to cut out tufts of grass. I started by cutting out rectangles and then just snipped triangles out of them. I kept some of the larger triangles to save for single strands of grass and saved the rest of them for our collection of scraps for art projects.

4) I folded the grass paper near the base, leaving just enough room to support it when I glued it to the paper.

5) Then I glued all the grass shapes to the paper. I just chose random spots for them, but I made sure to leave enough room between each of them for Little People animals to fit through.

6) Then I added the animals with Munchkin and Bean's help and this world came alive! (Hippo was sadly absent, Bean said he was sleeping.)

Bean put the carnivores on the smaller side of the river, saying that they were "working", although she didn't say what they were working on.

Bean put all the herbivores on the bigger side of the river, since it was safer and there was more food. Munchkin made sure his safari rangers joined in too! He even brought them a picnic. :)

Bean said this baby giraffe was brave and kept creeping it closer and closer to the river. :)

Munchkin especially likes the rangers and kept waking them around the safari. Here they are waving to each other from across the river.

And here he is inviting Rhino to have lunch with them.

Bean made sure everyone knew what the carnivores say. She held up each one and said, "ROAR!!"

Rhino had a nice lunch with the safari rangers.

Zebras apparently say "ROAR!!" too. She said this one was the white tigers brother. :)

I love how she looked at the baby tiger so quizzically

And of course Munchkin had to do his mandatory collect-all-the-animals pick-up.

But this time he gave them back! Bean said they were migrating for food. Understandable, since there were no trees in this area of the safari.

That's when it started raining. Bean got wicked excited and ran off and came back with Noah and his best friend Koala in the safari jeep. She said, "Hurry, it's raining!"

She started collecting all the animals, telling each one to hurry up.

And she started to line them up while Noah waited in his jeep. She said he was listening to music.

So many animals heard Noah's warning and they were just waited for him to announce what was going on. She kept telling them to wait.

A few animals kept returning to the safari to eat, but then Bean would make sure they made it back in line.

Munchkin took Koala away, so Noah left to go find him, but first he told the animals, "get in my cool ship!"

So Rhino took charge and became the leader. Except he was tired from the rain, so he took a nap.

A few animals managed to board the ship before they packed up and left.

But these guys were left behind. :(

Munchkin returned with Noah and rejoined the animals.

Rhino became a pirate captain and Gator became his sleepy first-mate. They made the other animals walk the plank. But they just landed back in the safari.

Bean finally made sure all the animals made it back to the safari.

But then she went back to playing with her "wanted" pirates.

Now I've gotta say, apart from owning Noah's arc, I have never gone over the story of Noah's arc with her. She came up with this by herself. Noah is typically played with beside the other pirates, but I was completely surprised when she was freaked out by the sudden rain storm outside and started to line up the animals to board Noah's cool ship. So I found it pretty ironic. :)

This was also the first time she really got into role-playing the different animals and telling me what they were doing. Normally she is quiet when she plays and will occasionally tell me what they are doing. This time she talked to all the animals and they talked to each other. I was so excited! This is a story-telling experience that I just had to write down so I could tell her about it when she is older. :)

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