Displaying Dramatic Dioramas at Sunrise in Sayville

In an amazing display of inspired dioramas, created by Sayville Second-grade students at Sunrise Drive, there were foxes and snakes, butterflies and bats, chipmunks and raccoons, turtles and deer, and don’t forget bears, all placed appropriately in winter scenes.

Last year, when the Sunrise Drive Second-grade classes followed the English Language Arts Standards by reading informational texts, in alignment with Common Core, each student was required to research nonfiction content and write a book, which was later bound and “published.” The classes also expanded on the curriculum with an additional craft—dioramas—which allowed the students to conceptualize their topics in 3D.

 This year, three of the four classes (Carpenter, Franze-Heuer, Krivosta) chose winter themes for their dioramas and focused on aspects of migration, adaptation, and hibernation—in some classrooms, the students collaborated on a midsize cave with a hibernating bear inside—while one class (Philp) allowed for personal preferences, but all diorama projects had to satisfy the requirement of nonfiction research.

New this year was the Haiku Poetry Project that combined student compositions with beautiful, winter birch tree paintings, created by the students during their art classes with Art Teacher Mrs. Jeanette Ainslie.

The results were astounding! Not only did the Second graders exhibit great enthusiasm and imagination in creating their dioramas and their haikus, they were proud to show their parents all the work during Go-To-School Night.

“The parents were genuinely surprised and pleased when they saw the finished books the children created.” Mrs. Claudia Carpenter observed. “ Since all of the research and writing was done in school ,it was an exciting night for the students since they were able to finally share their hard work with their families. Many parents also commented on the fact that the students were able to type and insert photos in their books.”

The students in Mrs. Franze-Heuer's class summarized their enjoyment of the projects, saying it was “learning in a fun way!”