Fort Huachuca, Arizona - Second grade students at Colonel Johnston Elementary School brought history to life during their Living Wax Museum presentation on Tuesday morning.
All four second grade classes participated in the event held in the cafeteria at the school. Friends, family and local community members came out to see just what the Living Wax Museum entailed.
"My son Quentin, he is very excited to be John Sutter, for the wax museum; he's been talking about it for months. We got him all dressed up with the hat and the mustache and he is really enjoying himself," said Tashima Beach.
"It's extremely important to learn about your history, exactly where we come from and the strength of America and the kids are learning a lot as well, as much as we are," Beach added.
This is the first year the elementary school has put on the Living Wax Museum. The idea was proposed by second grade teacher Amy Sullins, who had previously participated in this type of event at her former school.
The students have been working on their projects for the past month, researching, writing biographies, creating costumes and rehearsing their speeches. Sullins used the second-grade social studies curriculum for the American Revolution and Westward Expansion as the base for the project. Students were then able to pick from a list of historically significant people, picked by their teachers, to bring back to life.
"We're hitting a whole bunch of standards all in one project and I think what people don't realize is that speaking is a standard as well, that we have to teach them. At 7 and 8 years old, it's so hard to talk in front of people," Sullins said.
The students had to include where and when their character was born, why they are famous and include three important facts. All of the costumes were assembled at home and not at school.
For Gregory Smith, 8, the best part of playing Debora Sampson in the wax museum, "is that we get to tell people about the person that we've chosen." The best thing he learned was, "she was the first woman to join the Army. Back then, women weren't allowed to be in the Army but she managed to disguise herself and join the Army without being suspected."
The students in Sullins' class practiced their speeches an hour a day for the last week and a half, and researched and wrote for about two and a half weeks. "I'm just so proud of them, they have worked so incredibly hard and to see it come to fruition and see the parents as proud parents, it's a goose bump teach moment," she said.
Parents filled the cafeteria to see their little ones' hard work in action. "I was actually really surprised, you can tell a lot of these kids really studied their person that they chose, and they took the time to memorize their scripts," said mother Deirdre Maldonado.
"Very heartwarming to see them work so hard and do well, all of the children did really well today," she added. Her son Louis, 7, was dressed up as Geronimo. "The best part is the speeches but it caught me by surprise that his (Geronimo's) birthday is on my birthday," Louis said.
"I just thought it was a wonderful idea, because what a great, authentic way to learn about the past. History is so dry and boring to little children so this makes it fun and they'll never forget this," said second grade teacher Bethany Little.
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