3-D Diorama

Art 207-05, Group 4

Objectives:

• To introduce students to 3-D art.
• To give students the opportunity to practice folding and cutting paper.
• To allow students to experiment with spatial layout.
• To develop skill and confidence with 3-D art.

Student Materials:

1. Scissors
2. Glue
3. Color construction paper (8 1/2"x 11")

Teacher Materials:

1. Examples of three-dimensional art.

Procedures:

1. Introduce 3-D art.
2. Show the students previous examples in order to give them ideas for
3. their diorama.
4. Demonstrate folding paper in half.
5. Demonstrate cutting out shapes.
6. Demonstrate gluing a 3-D figure of their choice to the diorama.
7. Have students make their own diorama.
8. Display the dioramas for review and critique.

Vocabulary:

• 3 dimension - having or seeming to have depth as well as width and height.
• Diorama - a miniature scene reproduced in three dimensions against a colored background.

Information you will need to know as a teacher:

Characteristics of artistic development among fifth and sixth graders:

This stage of artistic development is referred to as the realistic stage. Children at this stage want to draw more realistic characters that are less exaggerated and of visual proportion. Exercises in contour drawing can be helpful in showing students how to draw more realistically. Exercises in drawing posed models, such as trees or mounted birds or animals can be a great tool in teaching children about drawing realistic figures. At this stage it is also important to integrate the art activity with other areas of your curriculum such as social studies, language arts, science, and math.

For more ideas and information about the stages of artistic development, refer to Artworks For Elementary Teachers by Donald and Barbara Herberholz.