Living Wax Museum

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Home : 2004 : February : 24

Living Wax Museum
By StephR

For the wax museum, I first had my kids research a famous, yet imaginative person in history (this went along with our Open Court Unit and the unit project of Biography) The kids chose people like Claude Monet, Henry Ford,
Duke Ellington and the like. They researched them, wrote their biographies, etc. Then, to present their findings, the kids wrote a one paragraph "summary" of the person's life in the 1st person point of view. On the day of the museum (today!), the kids dressed up as that person, stood still as a statue, and had a poster of their name and a "button" (just a red circle) people could

push. The kids from other classes came by, pushed the button, and my students "came to life" and recited the speech, as if they were a wax statue at a museum. When they were done, they just stopped in the same position the began in, just as an animatronic statue would. It was great! The kids were really into the "statue" idea and did a wonderful job. I hope I did a good enough job explaining it to you! (I will have pictures on our website soon of it if you need a visual!!)