Magic Treehouse Dioramas

Maddie and Ben have been working hard to complete a big second-grade project. Even though the are in different classes, they often have the same assignments as their teachers work in a team together. They each got to choose which Magic Treehouse book to read, then they had to create a diorama and fill out a passport-book report about the story they read. Each of them read their book in one afternoon, then they started chipping away at the worksheets. Last weekend, I helped them start their dioramas, and they finished them this weekend.

Maddie read Polar Bears Before Bedtime and decided she wanted bears and ice and Northern Lights in her diorama. She worked really hard on this one and the night sky in the background is SO much prettier in person. It looks a bit hazy in the photos because there is so much texture -- she used acrylic paints to paint the dark sky, then used chalk pastels smear in the colorful lights. Finally, she added sparkles of glitter glue for the stars.

She did the water like the painted part of the sky, then put glitter glue swirls on, and coated it all with clear acrylic gloss that she used to glue on the styrofoam and to make the water look wet. She created the bears with clay over pipe-cleaners, and the Jack and Annie characters were printed from the online book cover. She attached them to cardboard and toothpicks so they would stand in the snow.

Maddie also worked hard to make the outside look like a treehouse. She used grocery bags for the "wood" and glued on tissue paper leaves. Her entire diorama was beautiful and she was so proud of it.

Ben read Vacation Under the Volcano; it was a story about Mount Vesuvius erupting over Pompeii. Ben loves reading about volcanoes, and he has been fascinated by stories of Pompeii since we first learned about it when we were homeschooling last year. Ben was anxious to begin creating a volcano. The first weekend, he made a clay mountain on top of a cardboard shoe insert.  That same weekend he also painted the background with watered down acrylics and cut and painted some oatmeal boxes to be buildings in the town. The second weekend, he used tissue paper to "paint" and hold the mountain and cobbled road together since the clay cracked. He also used the tissue paper to paint the grass, road, and background trees.

His favorite part of the art may have been using a toothbrush with watery gray paint to splatter the whole scene with "ashes"... or maybe his favorite part was dripping the thick orange and yellow painted lava onto the side of the volcano and blowing it down the side. He also enjoyed using the computer to make a fancy title that he glue to the sides of his box. He REALLY had fun with the project, and he created a really neat diorama.

I am really proud of how hard Maddie and Ben worked for two weekends to make each of their projects "just right!"