Thinking about Dioramas

Over the past few months the children have been exploring teeny tiny things.  We have done everything from creating with different building materials, to thinking about tiny details as we draw and paint, to finding special tiny things on the playground.  

The interest seems to have continued with the children after winter break from school.  This week we started to brainstorm ways to incorporate the interest and ideas of all the children in a way that combined the ideas we want to continue exploring.

I printed out photos of dioramas for the children to see.  I explained that dioramas are a small way to represent a space.  Typically we make them out of a box and it is a way to use tiny materials in another way.

We looked at 5 photos of scenes that I thought might be of interest to the children.  We looked at a train station, the desert, a winter scene, an ocean, and a neighborhood.  The children each had the opportunity to vote for a scene that interested them.  They took turns putting their name under a photo to cast their vote, and then we looked at the results together.

We talked about which diorama idea had the most votes, which had the least amount of votes, and what they thought that meant.  Everyone concluded that the train station looked the most interesting and had the most votes, so that will be the scene we will start with.  In the days and weeks ahead, we will begin the planning and constructing process.

I'm excited because this idea really seems to combine the interest area of trains, with the ideas of constructing and drawing tiny details to add so that all of the children will be able to contribute to the process. It will be neat to see how the plans unfold!