Do you want to try and make your own reef at home? Try it out.

Materials needed:

• An empty shoebox with lid
• Tissue paper (sea blue)
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Glue
• Card stock or oak tag (variety of colors)
• Shells

Process:

1. Take the shoebox lid and about ½ an inch from the edge of the lid, poke a hole. Using this hole as a starting point, cut a window in the lid leaving about ½ inch all around.

2. Put the shoebox lid on the tissue paper and trace around it using a pencil. Cut out the tissue paper along the traced rectangle and glue it to the underside of the lid so it covers the window you cut out in step 1.

3. Now, take the shoebox and cut out a tiny peep hole in the center of the center of the shoebox.

4. Glue some blue color tissue paper to the inside of the shoebox.

5. Now, choose any color card stock or oak tag you like. Draw out the shapes of different coral animals on it. Be creative. Make sure that the shapes you make will fit in the box.

6. Now, you can start gluing the coral animals you made into the bottom of the shoebox. Make sure you check through the peep hole so you can see after they are glued.

7. Toss some shells to the floor of the box so it looks like the sea floor.

8. Place the shoebox lid onto the box and look through the peep hole.

Note: Our team found that you need at least three different coral shapes to make the coral reef attractive. You may want to experiment with both soft and hard coral shapes, making sure they can stand it the box with the lid covered. If you are not allowed to use scissors, please take the help of an adult.