Lesson Plan Submitted by Judy Lervolino
Elementary art teacher at Meadow View School, Susanville, CA.

Grades:

Adaptable to all grade levels

Materials: Rectangular facial tissue boxes, water color paints, tempera paints, and paint brushes

Procedure:

1. Cut out the face of the tissue box, leaving a 1/2 inch lip all the way around as a frame.
2. Paint the outside of the box with tempera paint. It takes 2-3 coats to completely cover.
3. Paint the inside back with water colors; blue for sky, green for grass, etc., depending on the subject of the diorama.
4. Diorama is now ready to fill with cut-out paper objects (or whatever your imagination brings to mind to use) that can be layered to create 3D effects. Objects can be hung from the inside top with fishing line.
5. These boxes can be used for theme studies - insects, dinosaurs, etc- or to show scenes from favorite stories. You can add a language component by having students write a description of what is in their diorama, or writing their own story, then creating a diorama to go with it.

These dioramas are very compact and easy to store as they stack nicely on top of each other.