Living Wax Museum {Biographies}

Hi y'all!

For the last 2 years, my Gifted and Talented students have done a major project in the Spring semester. It has been so much fun because we began doing a Living Wax Museum.

What is a Living Wax Museum?

Students learn incredible amounts of information about an important person in history. Then they dress up like that person and perform. They strike a pose that that person who have done and wait for someone to push their paper button. The button is on a table next to them. Then the student comes to life and begins talking about themselves as if they were really that person!

I had seen this idea on the internet and it intrigued me. The first year there were 10 GT students in third grade. I opened it up to any student that was willing to do the work. They were required to do extensive research by reading books and online articles. They created a timeline on the person they were studying. They wrote a research paper. They made an iMovie or iTrailer about that person. And then they got to dress up as that person and perform in our Wax Museum. It was so much fun although it was a lot of work. I had 15 students perform and they were amazing. 

 Click on any of these pics to see one of our first blog posts from June 2013 about our first ever Living Wax Museum.

Last year, 1 kindergartener, 3 first graders, and 1 second grader joined us for the Living Wax Museum. It was awesome. Their teachers did such a great job getting them ready. In third grade, we only had 7 students perform last year, but it still was a blast!

This year, we have many more students preparing for the Living Wax Museum. Currently, there are 13 second graders and 11 third graders in GT {and I have 4 more students who are doing the project!} I started working with them in January to help them pick a person they really wanted to know more about. We practiced together with Martin Luther King Jr. Then, they narrowed their choices down to 3 people and began reading and reading and reading. I must say, it is quite remarkable to watch 27 students completely enraptured in reading. We are splitting this group up because it is just too many projects for 1 teacher. This coming week, a second grade teacher will take the second graders and I will continue on with my third graders. She has never done this project before so I am so so so grateful that she is helping out. Of course, I plan to help her as we go. 

Our presentation of the Living Wax Museum will be in late May {after state testing!} I am excited to learn more about  Stan Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, Amelia Earhart, Albert Einstein, Roald Dahl, George Washington, Annie Oakley, Betsy Ross, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Edison and so many others.

If you have any advice to share, please do! I would love to hear how other teachers are doing this project or any other projects!

If you would like to know more about doing this wonderful project, you can email me or leave a comment! 

Seriously, it is a blast!

Thanks for reading!

~lisa