Desert Habitat Diorama Printable for Kids
This desert habitat diorama turns a few printed pages into a 3D desert scene. Kids color and cut out cacti, camels, meerkats, a tortoise and more, then stand them up on a sandy floor in front of a backdrop of red rock and blue sky.
It works well for a desert or habitats unit, a biomes project, or any kid who likes to build. Everything is cut and paste, so the only supplies you need are scissors, glue and something to color with.
What Kids Learn Building a Desert
A diorama gives kids a reason to think about how a habitat fits together. As they place each piece, they are deciding what belongs in the desert and where it goes: the tall saguaro cactus in the back, the tortoise close to the ground, the vulture up high.
The set has a lot to talk about. There are two kinds of camels, a one-hump dromedary and a two-hump Bactrian, so kids can compare them. There are animals that live on the ground, like the tortoise, the scorpion and the lizard, and animals that dig, like the meerkats. And there are plants that store water, like the saguaro and prickly pear cactus.
It is also great fine motor work. Coloring inside the lines, cutting around a cactus with arms and folding a small tab all take careful hand control.
How the Diorama Goes Together
There are only a few steps, and each one is a small job kids can do on their own:
- Color the pieces. Crayons, colored pencils or markers all work.
- Cut out each piece along the dashed line, leaving the white tab at the bottom attached.
- Fold the tab back so the piece can stand up.
- Join the backdrop and the ground at the fold. Tape or glue the extra white edge on each page together, or glue both pages to a piece of cardboard so the scene stays sturdy.
- Stand the pieces up on the sand, with the tallest ones in the back and the smallest in the front.
Some pieces glue flat against the backdrop. Others stand up on their tabs, which is what gives the scene its depth.
Setting Kids Up to Succeed
- Color before cutting. It is much easier to color a full page than small pieces.
- Start with the big, simple shapes like the camels and the tortoise. Save the cacti with arms for when scissors feel comfortable.
- Leave the tab on. Kids often cut it off by mistake, so point to it before they start.
- Use a glue stick on the tabs. It holds well and does not make the paper soggy.
- Lay everything out before gluing. Kids can move pieces around until the scene looks the way they want.
Making It Easier or Harder
For younger kids, pick five or six pieces instead of the whole set. A cactus, a camel, the tortoise and the meerkats make a full-looking scene. You can also cut out the trickier shapes ahead of time and let them do the rest.
For older kids, add some research. Have them pick three animals, find out how each one survives the heat, and write a sentence about each on a card next to the diorama.
Ways to Use It
- A habitats or biomes unit, with each child or group building a different habitat.
- A science center where kids sort which animals belong in the desert.
- A writing prompt. Kids write about a day in the life of one animal in their scene.
- A quiet project for a rainy day at home.
What’s in the Set
- Two color backdrops (one with red rock buttes and one with a big cactus) and two sandy floor pages
- Plants: saguaro cacti, prickly pear cactus, agave and other desert plants, rocks and a tumbleweed
- Animals: a one-hump camel, a two-hump camel, an antelope, meerkats, an aardvark, a scorpion, a cobra, a vulture, a lizard, a dung beetle, a jerboa, a pangolin, an ostrich, a jackal and a tortoise
- Black-and-white pieces with fold tabs, ready to color
Grab the Printable
The desert diorama comes as a printable PDF with the backdrops, floors and all of the pieces.
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