Louisa May Alcott

This morning was Emily's 5th Grade Wax Museum.  2 months ago the kids were all assigned a historical person to research, write a paper on, then condense the paper down to a 90 second/150 word speech.  Emily was very excited to be assigned Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women. 

At Emily's last parent teacher conference her teacher and I were discussing the need to find more challenging books for Emily to read that were also age appropriate.  We both felt Little Women was a good fit for Emily - she loves historical fiction, it's age appropriate, and it's LONG!  Something my fast reader needs.  So I picked it up at the library along with a stack of other books that I thought she'd enjoy and Emily and Rebecca both read it and loved it!  Love it when we have a book success!  Emily is now on to the Harry Potter series -- we finally have a child interested in reading Harry Potter!  Ha!

Back to the wax museum ... If you'll remember when Becca did this last year, part of the assignment was also to dress up at the historical person you were assigned.  This is one of my favorite parts of the assignment, because they are encouraged not to purchase items for the costume, but to use what they have around them and I love seeing what kids put together.  I saw one of Emily's friends in football pants and his mothers suit blazer; another wore an old prom dress from an older sibling, another used a short blue bathrobe to resemble a military jacket, another used a winter hat for a fight hat.  

The students are spread throughout the hallways of the school for one hour.  Students from younger grades, parents, and visitors move from student to student, and press a faux button (on the card taped to the wall to Emily's right in the picture below).  Upon pressing the button the 5th grader in front of you "comes to life" and recites their 150 word speech about themselves.  Emily recited hers over 30 times!  It's a really fun and impressive project that the students and family's really enjoy each year.   

For Emily's costume, we used on of my shirts and Becca's skirt I had made for the cultural celebration earlier in the month, then we tied up her hair and she started to resemble some of the pictures we'd seen of Louisa May Alcott.  

I would really love to know how women did their hair back in Louisa's day.
This poor attempt took 16 Bobbie pins.