8th Grade Miniature Rooms

8th Grade Miniature Rooms just finished up their miniature rooms unit. This is by far one of their favorite units of the year. And one of my favorite to teach. We focus a lot in areas of craftsmanship, particularly cardboard construction techniques. Students can also use all the techniques and skills and materials that they've learned since the beginning of the year. They come up with their own themed together, which I really don't limit. I find that teenagers are very invested when they get to choose what they're going to do. I myself was definitely a diorama kid growing up. If a teacher gave an option to do a diorama as an option, I would do it. This is kind of like a souped up version of that. We just have the two walls and the floor, which makes it easier to have more people working on the project instead of inside of a shoebox. I have tons of bins filled with trash and random things that I saved and I pick up and I think, oh, this will be good for that project. One of the things that kids love doing is just digging through my bins of stuff. One of the first things that I teach them though is how to construct a tabletop out of cardboard and in a three-dimensional way. And that technique is used throughout. A lot of people ask how do I grade this? I have a rubric with all of these requirements that we go over at the very beginning of this project. They have to have at least three furniture like items, craftsmanship and detail, and around 50% of their walls need to be destructed with decor, furniture, and details. I love making minis with 8 graders in the classroom! #artteacher #artteachersoftiktok #miniature #miniatures #artinspo