These Pokemon Pokeball Dioramas have been a huge hit at Figment. And it’s not just the Pokemon connection that the kids love (though that’s doesn’t hurt). One of the most empowering things about this kind of project is the chance it gives kids to engage in critical thinking and gain confidence in their choices. It’s also way more fun than the shoebox dioramas of my youth.
Here’s what you’ll need:
- Red and clear candy ball from Party City
- Styrofoam disc
- Hot glue gun and hot glue sticks
- Playdough
- Pokemon figurines
- slices of pool noodles to use as a base so the ball doesn’t roll
- Optional supplies — use any of these to personalize your Pokeball — plastic trees, rocks, fake ice, fish tank rocks…
- Pro Tip – We used a tortilla press to flatten the play dough, because it is fun and it works perfect for this project!
Instructions
- Slice a pool noodle to use as a base or roll a towel upend place under the red half of the poke ball. This will keep it steady.
- Hot glue the 3″ x 1″ styrofoam disk inside the red side of the candy ball. This will be your base. (You can also find these at Dollar Tree in the floral section.)
- Pick a Pokemon figurine to live in the poke ball and design a world for.
- If you’re familiar with your Pokemon, then you may want to design their pokeball to go with their element (fire, ice, electricity or water).
- Spread out the playdough on top of the styrofoam. Depending on the colors you use, it could represent grass, ice, lava, melted ice-cream…
- Place your figurine in the playdough and start designing a diorama for your Pokemon.
Wanna make it more educational?
This particular biome may be fictional and fantastic, but it can also be a fun jumping off point for discussing real biomes. A biome is a community of plants and animals with characteristics for the environment in which they exist.
You could also swap out the styrofoam and playdough for potting soil and add real plants to make a Pokemon terrarium.
We’d love to see how your pokeball biomes turned out! So be sure to tag @figmentcreative on Instagram or Facebook and subscribe to the blog for more fun projects.
