This is a beautiful and fun work for young children! When I was a teacher in the Montessori classroom, this activity was a big hit! But we used a pre-made land, air, and water mat from Waseca Biomes. All of their materials are gorgeous but very expensive.
Instead of buying a mat, I made this inexpensive mat quickly with felt and Aleene’s Felt & Foam tacky glue I bought from my local craft store (Michaels). I got a large light blue piece of felt for the sky – and the whole background/base of the mat (one dollar), and small pieces of felt in medium blue, medium green, dark green, brown, yellow, and white (fifty cents each).
I used crayola markers to sketch the pieces on the felt. Then, I cut them out and glued the felt pieces together with the tacky glue. I let it dry for an hour. It was so quick and easy and it came out beautiful! Annie loves this this land, air, and water mat and she’s been taking it out often.
Tip: If you don’t want to make a mat, use colored construction paper. You can just get brown (for land), white (for air) and blue (for water) construction paper, and sort the animals on top of the colored construction paper.
I love environmental education in general and this is a wonderful activity to share with kids. What a great idea!
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I love the tactile activities of sorting the animals to where they belong!!! Will definitely be trying this!
This is so cute! Thanks for sharing.
I love all the ways you’ve shown how to explore geography and land, air, and water with our littles! Great activities!
Interesting activities. Thanks for sharing!
Wow such a fun and educational idea!
These are such great tips! I love this playful activity lesson!
Obsessed with this geography unit. I’ll definitely girly be incorporating it in my daughters learning.
My two year old toddler is into digging dirt and exploring nature. I might as well let him do this. He will absolutely love the idea.
Dana, you make learning so much fun and absolutely a breeze. Kids definitely learn through play and this is such a creative way to introduce little ones to geography and help them appreciate nature.
I love this. My daughter would love how interactive this is too.
My four year old would love these activities. She’s very into science based activities. I’m excited to try these out.
My 2 year old would love these activities. She’s definitely different from my other two, she’s into the environment and animals, more science involved activities. I’m excited to share these during our learning time.
These activities are right up my 2 year old’s alley! We have a lot of toy animals. I’m inspired to make the mat now!