Diorama

[germansunshine]

My son is supposed to build a diorama for school. I have never done anything like that and now have to figure out how we can build one. He wants to make a flying squirrel diorama, but I have never been clever with crafts and have 2 left hands. Any ideas and suggestions on what we could use? Thanks so much!

[Judy]

Uh oh...I hear a lot of "I" in there..it's supposed to be his project.

How old is he/what grade is he in?

You can use pictures, beanie babies, a piece of fur to make a squirrel or make one out of clay. You can use twigs from outside or your local craft store. The background of the box can be painted or covered with colored paper.

When my sons have projects like these, I ask them what they want to show in their boxes and then we talk about different ways they can make it happen, but they're always the ones doing the work.

On a lighter note, my older son once did a report on Giant Squid. Sounds innocent enough, except there is virtually no information on them because they've never actually seen a live one...they've only found them washed up dead on the beach. *L* Try doing a report on that one! The report was short, very short, but in trying to explain to my son how large they were, I decided to make marks on the ground to show him. After that he came up with the idea to use streamers at school to show them the length...the teacher let the entire class out in the hall to view it.

[AnnW]

Originally posted by Judy
On a lighter note, my older son once did a report on Giant Squid. Sounds innocent enough, except there is virtually no information on them because they've never actually seen a live one...they've only found them washed up dead on the beach. *L* Try doing a report on that one! The report was short, very short, but in trying to explain to my son how large they were, I decided to make marks on the ground to show him. After that he came up with the idea to use streamers at school to show them the length...the teacher let the entire class out in the hall to view it.


Reminds me of when my ds was in 4th grade. One of the big research project they do is called the "Heritage Report". You pick a culture and then right a report on their influence of the history and culture of Texas...sounds great right? DS picked the Scottish. He was panicking cause he couldn't find anything. I emailed his teacher and said "look, you know I don't do my kids' homework, but he is flondering here". She gave me a bunch of internet research sites. None of them even mentioned the scottish till we found one and it said (and I will never forget) "many Scottish came to Texas, but never left their mark as they assimilated nicely" LOL Try building a report on that! It ended up ok cause the point was to learn how to research so ds really researched and came up with some funny facts like Neil Armstrong is Scottish, he worked for Nasa, Nasa is in Texas! LOL
DD is in 4th grade this year, DS told her "don't pick the Scottish!!"

[Judy]

I bow down to you...you have me beat! *laughing*

[aztec_judy]

Ann ... that is tooo cute.. And I fully bow down to ya'll.. being born and raised in tex... I know very little about it at all... Of course thats more my fault than the schools. But after finding out about the aztecs in the 4th grade I lost alot of interest in learning much on history at all. Now I wished I had paid more attention to to things... ah well such is life for sure... lololol Now I am learning more about the history of things including tx among other states and countries... lolol

seee yaaaa......

[AnnW]

Aztec Judy.....You were born and raised in Texas and don't know Texas history? You really must not have paid attention! LOL It's every year in elementary school, 7th grade and 9th grade! ;)

didn't mean to sound competitive, Judy, I just will never forget that line in that book as long as I live. Like I said, it ended up being a fun report for ds to do.

[JAK]

Originally posted by AnnW
Reminds me of when my ds was in 4th grade. One of the big research project they do is called the "Heritage Report". You pick a culture and then right a report on their influence of the history and culture of Texas...sounds great right? DS picked the Scottish. He was panicking cause he couldn't find anything. I emailed his teacher and said "look, you know I don't do my kids' homework, but he is flondering here". She gave me a bunch of internet research sites. None of them even mentioned the scottish till we found one and it said (and I will never forget) "many Scottish came to Texas, but never left their mark as they assimilated nicely" LOL Try building a report on that! It ended up ok cause the point was to learn how to research so ds really researched and came up with some funny facts like Neil Armstrong is Scottish, he worked for Nasa, Nasa is in Texas! LOL
DD is in 4th grade this year, DS told her "don't pick the Scottish!!"

How funny!

Dd is working on her big 4th grade report right now. Hers is on a native culture here in AK called the "Tlingits". How on earth do you think it's pronounced? It's the "clinkits". Thank goodness we were at the library trying to look up info and were able to ask the librarian how to spell it because we couldn't find any info. She said so many people have problems spelling it. I wonder why! ;)

She has to do a written report, build a model of their home and also do an oral report in front of the class. It's due next week and she's just about done. She's nervous about the oral report and I really don't blame her!

[AnnW]

I love that schools are doing oral reports so early now. The skill of speaking in public is probably one of the most valuable things a child could learn!!

[KathyT]

I totally agree with the oral reports from an early age thing! dd2 is a natural, loves speaking in public, loves speaking period :newwink:

Dd1 however really gets stressed. She has to do one today on giraffes. The added pressure of doing it in french doesn't help either, when she gets nervous the words don't come as easily.

[germansunshine]

Thanks so much ladies! I am not yet used to the American school system and at the moment not too happy with the Department of Defense schools, but that's another story, LOL.

He finally ended up making a Diorama of fish (much easier than a squirrel) and it looked really nice. Yep, Mom helped of course, my husband would never think about helping, but we found a few neat items in the crafts store that we also used, so to this foreigner it ended up being a lot easier than she thought:-).

Oh BTW, he is in 5th grade.........

Thanks!!!!

Susanne

[PamE]

Glad it all turned out well! :)