I noticed recently that many of our geography materials were not seeing much use. Mr. Man has a very solid understanding of the continents and oceans but is still very overwhelmed by work about countries. Both kids are showing a lot of interest in animals recently and have been taking the animal figures out of the continent boxes to play with around the school room. I decided to pick up a few hard plastic pencil cases from a craft store and create a habitat play box for a couple of the continents to see if it would spark any interest. I started with Europe and Antarctica and used red and white boxes to match the geography color coding that is found throughout our Geography work. I used hot glue, felt, and fake grass for the Europe box. I added in a few animals that you would find in Europe (these figures have matching information cards in the continent boxes). For my Antarctica habitat box I used hot glue, felt and some glass beads I found at the dollar store that I thought would be a great representation of ice. Put animal figures that could be found in Antarctica and placed both boxes on the the geography shelf. Little Miss found the material first and played with them for quite a while. She has been really enjoying small object play recently and these mini habitats with tiny figures seemed to really appeal to her. Mr. Man was very excited to see them and he did something that I found really interesting. We keep a world map tapestry on the floor in our school room that is used for a number of activities, Mr. Man placed the Europe Habitat box on Europe on the tapestry while he played. He did the same with the Antarctica box. He has asked if I can make the rest of the continent boxes for him as well. I am also considering making more than one for a few continents that have a wide array of habitats within them. This has been a very cheap project and each box took around ten minutes to assemble. I am also liking how easy it is to carry them along in the car or diaper bag in case my kids need something to do while we are on the go. I will be updating this post as I continue to make more boxes!