A Diorama Project

When we first learned about the Charlotte's Web diorama project we were excited. Because, as you may know, we love a good artsy school project. 

A few weeks back a few essential supplies were purchased. A pig. Some silvery thread. Popsicle sticks. And an on clearance sale raffia bow. (Because the little hay bales they were selling at Michael's were $5 and this is a first grade project after all.) We also had a few shoe boxes stored up. 

We waited until the rubric came home to get started. First M had to pick the scene she wanted to depict. She opted to go with the scene where Wilbur meets Charlotte for the first time. I loved this idea because bonus: we wouldn't have to figure out how to put words in the web! 

Here was her vision: 

My favorite scene is Templeton and the rotten egg but it's not my diorama. 

I did a lot of googling dioramas and ultimately made the decision to use just the lid of the shoe box and the back wall, this makes for a shallower diorama, which gave us less space to decorate as well as let it be well lit without much effort. 

M painted the box red and we used the 3d pen to make Charlotte. I had her draw a spider on wax paper and we just traced it with the 3d pen. Purple legs and a dark gray body is what her Charlotte looks like. 

Okay, here's the diorama in all its glory. 

I think this is pretty spot on to her vision right? M really put a lot of effort into the project with an assist from her dad since I had NO clue how to create a hay loft. Husband did also cut all the popsicle sticks for her too, because let's be real, I wasn't going to let her use a snips. But M figured out exactly how she wanted the fence to look and drew lines where he was supposed to cut. I wanted rounded popsicle stick edges but she was insistent she wanted pointy pickets. M also didn't want to whitewash the fence, but for just a little contrast we were able to convince her to brown wash it. Turns out she enjoyed that part nearly as much as twisty tying the hay bunches.

Here's a close up for some details. She is pretty tickled by the use of oatmeal in Wilber's bowl (a vitamin bottle lid wrapped in tin foil) and raisins as the manure. (Yes, I now have pig poop in my google image search history. As one does for school projects.) The web obviously is on top of the manure because Charlotte knows that's how she will catch flies. 

My favorite part of the diorama is the barn quilt out of Perler beads. Do you have barn quilts by you or are those a midwestern thing? I like that it adds a pop of girly flair to the whole project which feels awfully monochromatic to me. (But... it's a barn so...) 

Okay, I admit, I also love Perler beads because we always listen to One Direction when we create them. 

We had such a fun time creating this diorama. M still needs to present it to her class but she is so excited about it.