BROWNSTOWN — One student is interested in war books and historical fiction, so he researched and dressed up as Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen, aka “The Red Baron.”
One girl wants to be a paleontologist, so she learned all she could about Mary Anning.
Another girl’s grandmother worked for former first lady Karen Pence, so that influenced her to learn more about that prominent figure.
Two boys wanted to portray George Lucas, creator of the “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” movies, but one agreed to pick Elon Musk instead.
Those are examples of the interesting characters featured in a wax museum presentation May 4 by 26 third-graders in Beth Shelton’s class at Brownstown Elementary School.
For several years now, the social studies culminating activity has given her students a chance to choose a famous historical or present-day person to research. Then they create a display board to include a biography, a hand-drawn portrait, a timeline, a word cloud, compare and contrast, an information sheet and a map.
The biography is written in third person, and they take some of the information and put it into a first-person speech for the day of the wax museum.
“We correlate that with our language arts standards as far as they write their speech in first person because they are that person, but they write their biography in third person because they are reviewing that standard for third grade, as well,” Shelton said.
For the second year in a row, the students were set up outside around the school’s softball field, giving other students and teachers at the school and family members an opportunity to check it out. At each station, attendees could press a paper button to bring the character to life.
“I always really like second grade for sure to come because depending on who ends up in my classroom, they’ve definitely seen it once,” Shelton said.
Shelton encourages her students to pick a person related to their interests. While there are some figures repeated each year, she always has new, interesting ones added.
Third-grader Karlynne Stradley chose J.K. Rowling, author of the “Harry Potter” book series.
In her research, Stradley found she had a few things in common with Rowling.
“We both are creative, fun, smart and we both like sports and books,” she said.
For the presentation, she wore a black robe and held a copy of “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.” She currently is reading the 734-page book.
“My favorite book was ‘Harry Potter,’ so I got an inspiration from that. ‘Harry Potter’ is my favorite movie also,” Stradley said. “I just like the dramatic scenes. I just like magic and fantasy books.”
Stradley said the wax museum was a fun project.
“At first when I saw that I was going to do a speech and I had to memorize it, I got really nervous, but now, I’ve got it just perfected,” she said, smiling.
Next to Stradley, Forrest Lane wore a No. 42 Dodgers baseball uniform since he researched Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play in Major League Baseball in the modern era.
Lane said he chose Robinson because he also likes baseball, and he likes how Robinson made history and changed baseball.
“I thought it was pretty cool,” Lane said. “I’ve learned a lot about him. He was athletic, he was strong and he was thoughtful.”
Lane has played baseball for five years, and he is inspired by people like Robinson.
“I love baseball,” Lane said.
Classmate Piper Owens also dressed the part, wearing a blue dress and bonnet to portray Laura Ingalls Wilder, a writer who was known for her “Little House on the Prairie” series of children’s books that were based on her childhood in a settler and pioneer family.
“I’ve read her whole book series, and I have watched ‘Little House on the Prairie,’” Owens said. “They tell about their life.”
Each year, Shelton said she loves seeing her students embrace the fun project near the end of the school year.
“They have talked about it for weeks,” she said. “We’ve been testing for two weeks with ILEARN. Every afternoon, they did their individual research, and we put our boards together. Then just getting that final product now … I enjoy seeing their interest and their drive to do that learning on their own.”