July 16, 2009

Dioramas Help Home School Children Learn

Staff2 Homeschool
Your homeschool student is completing a study topic and you need a finishing project. A diorama can be an effective means to conclude or demonstrate a study topic. Have your child determine an important aspect of his learning and display that learning for others. It can be a book report, a science exhibit, or an illustration of an historic event. As the child works on creating her diorama, she is reinforcing her learning and putting to use her imagination and problem-solving skills.  
 
What size would you like it to be? Dollhouse or action-figure size may allow ready-made furniture, people or accessories for the diorama. You can make a smaller one, such as the plastic army men size. I have covered the plastic figures with damp facial tissue paper and once dry, they hold the new shape very well. For example, I clipped the gun off a standing soldier and fashioned a hat and skirt out of the wet facial tissue. Once painted, it transformed into a peasant woman holding feed for her chickens! Acrylic paint is easy to use on these figures. There are many small plastic characters available, such as police, firemen, astronauts and various warriors as well as many varieties of animals, like zoo, farm, ocean or endangered animals.

 

You can use any box that provides a floor and a back, and for most scenes two sides and a ceiling. Be imaginative in your search for a diorama home. You do not have to limit yourself to the standard shoe box! Maybe you have a wine crate or a file folder box, or one of your children is learning wood crafting and would like to build a display box. Cover the exposed surfaces with colored paper, paint or fabric. There may be room on the box sides for the child’s science or history report, poem, book review or description of the diorama’s scene. The title of the piece can be displayed across the box top or on the floor at the edge of the scene, or as a piece of cardstock inserted up top.

 


For an outdoor scene the floor can be coated with a wash of glue that is covered with sand or aquarium gravel, or a piece of sandpaper can be used for a beach or a path through the woods. Vegetation can be represented by Spanish moss covering the ground or glued to a small form such as a green-painted piece of styrofoam or a bottle cap for shrubs. Twigs glued upright on the back or sides, decorated with pieces of Spanish moss or torn bits of a green kitchen sponge, become trees. Cotton balls pulled apart are popular to use as clouds. A walkway can be created using paper cut into shapes representing paving stones or bricks and glued to the floor. Ice cream sticks make effective fences and sign posts. A campfire can feature tiny twigs for the logs and paper or wisps of a cotton ball colored orange for flames.

 

The scrapbook pages available today can provide a wealth of visual effects. For example, a house’s floor can be a page designed to look like wood or a rag rug. The smaller print papers can be used for wallpaper. A small nature scene cut to size can make an effective window, especially if you use a piece of lace or tulle for curtains. Cut-outs from old magazines work well for this also. A rectangle cut from an old sweater looks like an area rug. Fabric placed on a small, flat box becomes a bed. A little square of fleece makes a good blanket.

 

Clay is a useful resource for your diorama. Modeling clay, polymer clay or salt dough can be used to form animals or nearly any little thing your scene needs. Various toys, besides the ones we have already discussed, can also work, such as matchbox cars, building sets, wooden blocks or bean bag animals.  A hunt through your crafting supplies should also provide some possibilities. You may find yarn, pom poms, wood shapes, sequins, ice cream sticks or beads.

 

Set your children loose and see what they come up with to create their dioramas, just make sure you okay their items before they are used in case they find something you don’t want glued down! 

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Michelle B. is a full-time homeschooling mom and has been so for more than 18 years. She has a degree in Elementary Education. Follow us at Twitter @homeschoolart

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June 4, 2009

Preschoolers Learning Math and Science Concepts Through Play

Staff2 Curriculum, Life Skills, Math, PreSchool, science

Pour and Measure
by Michelle B.

When my second daughter was a preschooler between the ages of two to four one of her favorite activities was measuring and pouring. She used my measuring cups and spoons so often I could never find them when I needed them!  And she would pour everything possible, with of course the accompanying mess. I finally wised up and gave her a measuring set for her birthday. The first thing I bought was a new cat litter pan to hold the mess in. I had looked at a dishpan first, but it was too small. The litter pan was a good, working size. A trip to the discount store provided me with plastic measuring cups and spoons, a one-cup and a two-cup liquid measuring cups, a set of funnels, a turkey baster, a pitcher, a ladle, a set of plastic juice cups, plastic mixing bowls and a set of mixing spoons thrown in. Everything fit inside the litter pan.

All that was needed was the stuff to pour and stir! A zipper bag full of pinto beans and another of rice fit the bill nicely.

My daughter was delighted with her gift. We would take the set (minus the rice and beans) out to her wading pool which had a few inches of water in it, and we would measure and pour and stir and pretend and learn all afternoon. I would shake a few drops of food color in her pitcher and another color in a gallon water jug, and my daughter would have a great time measuring and mixing her secret potions. Sometimes she and her older sister would take the set out to the sandbox and pretend they were cooking, concentrating on the “correct” measuring to make the goodies turn out just right. The bathtub also made a great measuring playground.

When it was too hot to play outside (we live in the Arizona desert!) I would pull out the beans and rice and let my daughter experiment away on the kitchen floor. She would measure a cup of beans and then try to match that with the rice, concentrating on filling the cups and pouring carefully. Or she would see how many ¼ cups of rice it would take to make one cup. The pan kept the escaping beans to a minimum.

All this play introduced her to and helped her gain inquiry learning skills and concepts in measuring, estimating, eye-hand coordination, concentration, problem-solving, counting, one-to-one correspondence, fractions, creativity, fine-and gross-motor control and mathematical thinking. Her curiosity gave her many questions to investigate and answer. And she transferred her new pouring skills to helping me cook dinner!

Young children learn as readily as they eat and sleep, as it is a natural part of their being. No one needs to tell them, “It’s time to learn now.”  Watch your little ones and notice that nearly all of their play automatically involves learning. The measuring set served as a tool for my daughter to use to expand her understanding of her world and gain important learning skills.

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Michelle B. is a full-time homeschooling mom and has been so for more than 18 years. She has a degree in Elementary Education. Follow us at Twitter @homeschoolart.

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