Dioramas in the Classroom
By Kaitlyn Thompson
In North Cedar’s Prep. English class the freshman are working on a project for a book
the read The Cay by Theodore Taylor which they are reading. The Cay is a story about a young
boy named Phillip and an older man named Timothy who survive when their ship is torpedoed
by German U Boats. They make it to an island, or the cay as they call it, and they endure a
hurricane where Timothy dies. Phillip must survive on his own until he is rescued, two months
later.
After reading this book the freshman started on their projects. Their assignment was to
create a diorama. They could choose to create a diorama on a tidal pool, different types of fish,
coral, ships, langosta lobsters, or a hurricane. One example of the dioramas was freshman
Trevor Williams. Williams decided to do his on a hurricane. He used a box as his setting and
painted the insides, he used cotton balls for the top of the box creating the eye of the hurricane,
and had little palm trees on the inside on the “ground”. To show debri flying around in the
hurricane he glued little pieces of miscellaneous things to the back of the box. Cameron King
created a tidal pool showing some of the different species that Phillip found in the tidal pool
when he had to find his own food. King explained some of the species of fish or crustaceans in
his pool.
“This is a fun project where students can go more in depth on topics related to the story,”
says Mrs. Green, the Prep. English teacher. When students learn about the animals and ships
used in the story they have a better understanding of the details the author used in the
plot. The students didn’t only make dioramas, they got to crack open coconuts too. In the story
Timothy wants to have some coconut milk and meat but he can no longer climb the
trees. When Phillip gets enough courage he decides to try and climb the tree for a coconut. “ I
wanted students to understand how hard it would have been for the characters to open a
coconut with only a small knife,” comments Green, “so I purchased a couple of coconuts for
students to open.” It was a tough job cracking the coconuts open. The students used a hammer
and a punch to put a hole in the top of the coconut first, so they could drain out the coconut
water. Then after that the students went down to the shop and used a sawzall to cut the
coconuts in half, so they could see what they looked like inside. After washing the coconut off,
Mrs. Green sliced off chunks of coconut for students to eat.
“This has been a fun class because as we practice our reading and we can also eat our
projects,” says Braydan Hayzlett. Practicing reading and communication skills can be fun when
there are choices of projects to enhance the books read for class.