Mallards

Alex's teacher has given me some good blog content, with all of the cool things that are happening in her classroom this year!  Over the last several weeks, her students have chosen an animal they would like to research and then they wrote a little report about them and created a diorama with the animal in their habitat!  Alex knew right away that he wanted to choose a bird for his project, and landed pretty quickly on the Mallard (he has informed us that it's not a Mallard Duck, just a Mallard!)  

 Once their diorama was complete, they brought it to school and gave a presentation to the class about their animal!  Alex gave his presentation on Thursday, so I thought I'd share the process on how it was created!  Whenever you give a project like making a diorama to a 1st grader, it is truly a project for the whole family!  

It started out with just a base and some crumpled newspaper...

 The plaster sheets came next...

 Since Alex learned that Mallards live near lakes and ponds in wetland areas, he got to work painting the ground color...

Then he painted the area for the water...

 Now the project really started to take shape, with the addition of some rocks and grass...

Then the final details of the wetland grasses, cattails, a few bushes, and the water (the kit we got included "realistic water" that you pour in and it hardens but looks like water, pretty cool!)...

Alex carefully placed the ducks...err... Mallards and his diorama was complete!

A couple of fun facts that Alex shared about Mallards in his presentation is that they are one of the largest ducks in North America, and the males lose their green head feathers when they molt.  Great job Alex!