We had such fun with this second grade project. My favorite parts are the birds and hailstones. We googled seagulls, and printed the first page of image results. Then she sat down, and after a few minutes, handed me this sheet of birds in different sizes. She's still able to amaze me: They were just so wonderfully drawn.

The peach is one of those brown paper mâché ornaments from the craft store. Hannah wanted only the top of it to show through the cloud, so I cut into it and was surprised to find that the paper is just a thin covering around a hollow (but hard!) plastic shell.

I also found out that cotton wool doesn't make the best hail. The balls instead are craft store pom poms in various sizes. Firm enough, even at that small size, for a needle to pass through without the ball falling apart. The idea for the hail stones, by the way, came from this wonderful ornament by Holly Chapman.

There are times when I wonder about my decision to remove headlines on these pages, and this post brought that concern up again. If I were to have a headline, it would be this comment by Dustbowldiva on Open Salon: "Ahhh, the diorama." It says volumes about all the planning, bribery, yelling and cajoling that goes into getting these school projects out the door. Then, miraculously, it's all done, and you've both somehow managed to produce something that's truly beautiful, without blowing the deadline. Or killing each other.