Dioramas

Brian has reached the segment of his Awana book where he is to create a diorama depicting a story from the Bible.  The book gave him three options of stories to recreate and he chose to do the story of Paul and Silas.  In Acts, we read about how Paul and Silas were arrested because they were preaching the Gospel.  They were then placed in jail and chained to the walls.  That night, while singing songs of praise to the Lord, an earthquake hit that caused their chains to break off and the doors to open.  The Roman jailer came running into the jail thinking that all of his prisoners had escaped.  However, Paul and Silas called out to him assuring him that everyone was still there.  At that point the jailer fell to his knees and asked how he could be saved.  "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ," said Paul.

Jailer (red) praying, Paul (standing) and Silas (sitting)

Brian and I worked together on his project.  We used thin sheets of Styrofoam for the walls and floor.  I used Todd's soldering iron to melt grooves to make the Styrofoam look like bricks and a stone floor.  Brian painted the walls and floor. 

Silas

Together we made the men.  I couldn't find my clay and didn't have enough salt to make playdoh so we made our own clay out of glue and cornstarch ( 1/3 cup cornstarch to 1/4 cup thick, white glue).  As we were shaping the figures we realized that their body parts wouldn't stick together so Bryce came up with the idea of using toothpicks to join the parts together.  We even used the toothpicks to attach the figures to the styrofoam floor.

Yarn was used to simulate the chains, and I made tunics from felt.  While searching through my fabric box I remembered some fake fur that I had and figured it would make cool hair.

Paul

Brian was pretty pleased with the results.  I can't wait until it is Bryce's turn to make one.  I think we will try to do the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch.  I have got a book on how to make a chariot.  Hmmm...maybe we could go ahead and make it now.