Make a Diorama of Animals that Hibernate in Winter

During the winter season, we love to study about animals that live in cold and snowy places like North America and Canada because many of them hibernate.

Hibernation is such a fascinating concept for children that I make sure that we study it every single year.

We take a look at animal behavior during winter as some hibernate, my great and adapt.

We also love hands on learning! So in this post, we will show you how to make a diorama of animals that hibernate in Winter!

It is the perfect afternoon craft to make on out cold wintry afternoon.

It is the perfect activity to add to our animals in Winter.

Our hibernation diorama turned out amazing and we had a wonderful time making it together.

You can take a look at how we made ours and hopefully, you will be inspired to make your own animal diorama with your kids this Winter!

And the best part is that the printables you need are included here.

What You Need to Make a Diorama

This diorama will focus only on some animals that hibernate in winter.

Check out the materials that you will need:

This set of printables (you can download them in this post) printed in color on cardstock
scissors
tacky glue
a cardboard box (ours was about 18×12)
about five or six empty toilet paper rolls
about eight handfuls of cotton balls

Neenah Astrobrights Premium Color Card Stock, 65 lb, 8.5 x 11 Inches, 250 Sheets, Stardust White Aleene’s Original Tacky Always Ready Adhesives, 4 oz.Fiskars 8 Inch Softgrip Scissors Straight, Stainless Steel (01-004761J)Perfect Stix Cotton Balls M-500ct Medium Sized Cotton Balls (Pack of 500)

Do you and your kids know what animals hibernate in the Winter and how do animals survive in the Winter? Well, let’s see.

There are many mammals that hibernate, but there are also some insects, reptiles and amphibians that also hibernate.

Some Winter animals that hibernate are: bears, bats, ladybugs, snails, badgers, raccoons, mice, some squirrels, etc.

In this printable for the diorama, we share pictures of about 10 pictures of animals that hibernate in different sizes that you can pick and choose from to make YOUR diorama your own.

As you know, some animals hibernate in Winter. They eat a lot during a period before going into sleep mode, but why do animals hibernate? When do animals hibernate?

These are some great discussion points to have as you put together your awesome hibernation diorama.

So let’s get started!

First, print out this printable hibernation diorama set, including the pictures of animals that hibernate, the backgrounds and the props.

Make sure that they’re printed in color and on cardstock because we need it to be sturdier.

Cut the box to accommodate the diorama (see picture below). Get creative with your background!

Take at a look below at how we gave it a 3D effect with the different background options.

You pick your favorites and glue them along the 3 sides of the box in the order you prefer.

Now that your background is ready, you can plan your props and your hibernating animals.

This is the perfect way to explain why and how animals hibernate to kids!

Some animals sleep in caves, some sleep under fallen tree trunks, in hollow tree trunks, etc.

We started out with the cave and the bears. We knew that we definitely wanted to make room for that and, because it’s so big, we kind of needed to find a spot for it first.

We chose the right side and we chose to include both momma bear and cub in it.

You can cut the cave to be smaller and shorter to accommodate only the cub or only the momma bear’s head.

We cut the leaf-less tree and thought that it’d be perfect next to the cave.

Squirrels love trees, so we thought it’d be fun to put a small one on the trunk (like it’s in a hole in the trunk) and the bigger squirrel on the tree branches. It looked awesome!

Also, we got some hibernating ladybugs and snails and glued them behind the fallen tree trunk.

Bugs like to hide and keep warm in places like that.

Our diorama is starting to come together beautifully!

If you need to stop in the middle to let the glue dry or something, use that time to read!

Here is a great “What do animals do in Winter?” book list!

How and Why Animals Prepare for Winter (How Scholastic Reader Level 2: Hibernation Hibernation (Patterns in Nature series)What Is Hibernation? (Science of Living Things)