Building the Diorama

Have you ever considered having your child make a diorama as part of history project? It doesn’t have to be difficult, and researching to build one can be very educational. Dioramas are miniature scenes and can depict anything from historic land and sea battles, to fantasy castles, complete with dragons.

To begin with, your child will need to determine the subject of the diorama. Then they will need to determine exactly what they want to include, for purposes of illustration let’s use a Mississippi River scene from Tom Sawyer. Your child will need to determine scale, meaning how big pieces need to be in relationship to the entire project. Then he should lay out the landscape, or river-scape in this case, on a piece of paper, drawing in the points of interest.

For this example, a river boat, a river, a raft, perhaps some trees for the bank will all be components. Some things can be bought, such as the trees, from model railway suppliers, but all of it can be constructed from cardboard, construction paper, digital photos, paper machete, and pieces of plastic.

Imagine what your child will learn from researching this project. Reading about Tom Sawyer, learning about river boats and the Mississippi River, organization, exercising their artistic knowledge and eye for detail as he creates this scene in realistic miniature scale. When the project is finished, let him become the teacher, and tell you what he has learned.