Create an ocean habitat with a preschooler using a piece of poster board, watercolor paints and sugar or cornmeal. Have the preschooler paint the whole board with colors of blue and green to represent the water, and then allow it to dry. Have him use a paintbrush to paint glue onto the bottom of the page, covering about one quarter of it. Before the glue dries, place the poster board onto a large mat or newspaper to catch the mess, and have the him sprinkle sugar or cornmeal over the glue, shaking off the excess. Once it has dried, he can paint marine wildlife and plants onto the painting to complete the ocean habitat.
A preschool child can complete an art project of a desert habitat by first forming the scene out of terra cotta-colored clay. Allow her to shape the clay onto a piece of poster board the way that she believes a desert would look, with canyons, sand dunes or just flat. After she has formed the clay, she can cover it with sand, gently shaking or blowing off any excess. After the sand is on the clay, she can form the wildlife and plants that make a desert their home by using clay of various colors and then place them onto her desert scene.
Preschool children can create a forest art project using twigs, leaves and soil gathered from outdoors. To make the habitat more realistic, provide him with a piece of wood or log to create his art project on. He will first have to paint a layer of glue at the bottom of the wood he is using and apply the soil to represent the ground, removing any excess before proceeding. After the soil has dried, he can glue the twigs, leaves and other objects, such as flower petals, onto the project so that they represent the trees, shrubs and other vegetation of a forest.
Allowing a preschool child to create a large mural is a fun way for her to make a jungle habitat. You will have to hang a large piece of bulletin board or butcher paper along a wall before she begins. She can paint the paper green with tempera or finger paints, or you can complete this step ahead of time. Provide her with plenty of old magazines or print outs to use to find pictures of animals and plants that are found in a jungle so that she can cut them out and place them on her mural. After the cutouts are in place, she can drape green crepe streamers along the mural to represent vines and attach trees and flowers made of tissue paper.