Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Faces of History


As part of the Classical Conversations Essentials program - our children get to participate in a fantastic program called Faces of History.

They research a historical person and write a five-paragraph paper to be given in costume and written in first person ending with Who am I?! It is always a fun time that we look forward to each year.

This year, we've been in US History, so our historical faces were Alvin York and Betsy Ross.

Ladies first, so I'll begin by telling you about Betsy Ross! This was the first year that students were given input on who their character was - they submitted three names and then one of those was assigned to them taking into consideration duplicates, covering various time periods, etc.


This is the first time I've bought a ready-made costume, but we found this one used on Amazon and I think it had been purchased and returned but never worn. I paid less than $15 since it was used but I see it is quite a bit higher now. She wore the shoes from my wedding and we added an embroidery hoop to the flag - that was it for her!

I did not get a photo of her on stage as I was taking video - a friend took some of these photos including the one of Samuel on stage.

We found the virtual tour of the Betsy Ross home interesting and helpful and were astonished to consider that making the flag would have been counted as treason!



Each student also prepares a food that represents their person or could have been common in their time period. We came up with a fun flag cookie for Rachel!



Now for Alvin York - this was Samuel's first year and he did great!


We found his shirt and pants at a thrift store, Daddy supplied the belt and the folded hat was only $1 thrifted! I was so thrilled to find it! The medals belonged to David's Dad from Korea, Vietnam and WWII. And the leather leggings were actually worn in WWI by one of our ancestors - soooo neat!

Especially helpful in Samuel's presentation was the Adventures in Odyssey series about Alvin York




Figuring out a food for Samuel was a little harder initially. I was originally thinking hard tack and/or beef jerky - war rations! But I knew those snacks might not be very *fun* - then we learned something interesting! Every time I looked up ideas of WWI foods, we came upon information about the Salvation Army making donuts and coffee to serve to the troops in the trenches. It was so fascinating to learn.

We found the original recipe and made the donuts - our one batch made 63 donuts! A friend made me this donut display last year and I was happy to use it again. I printed out WWI era Salvation Army posters and photos and taped them onto toothpicks for some explanation of the connection between Alvin York and donuts!


So grateful for this experience which provided many learning opportunities for my students! If you could be a face in American history - who would you choose?




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7 comments:

Leanne said...

At school, our kids participate in "wax museum", which is really similiar to Faces in History... Last year one of my kiddos went as Martin Luther King Jr... and this year, my 3rd grader will be Neil Armstrong! We are excited about that one because we live right next the university he attended! and there's a huge monument and building named after him! I can't wait to come up with his costume!

Grammie and Pepaw said...

Well done, Rachel and Samuel!! :)

Wendi said...

Love! Megan did something similiar in third grade. They called it a "wax museum." She was Clara Barton. It was such fun to see the kids in costume and hear their presentations!

Jenny said...

This is so great, Monica!! They look wonderful. And that Adventures in Odyssey episode is one of our favorites!

connie said...

Awesome jobs to Rachel and Samuel.. You looked the part and did so good..

*carrie* said...

Great job! Their costumes, food, and speeches were wonderful!

I found it interesting to see a couple other people mention the wax museum, as our school does that in 4th grade. And Nathan was Neil Armstrong!

Anonymous said...

Great job, Rachel and Samuel! I'm so proud of you both! Love, Nana