Take a quick look around and you’ll see some familiar faces. In one corner, former President Barack Obama and filmmaker George Lucas huddle together. A little ways away, Betsy Ross displays her flag while Pablo Picasso clutches his palette; above them is a dancing Maria Tallchief. At the far end, Daniel Boone is resplendent in his coonskin cap.

 

No, this isn’t a scene from Madam Tussauds – it’s the Bryn Mawr Elementary Center, where third graders have used their creativity to bring fantastic historical figures to life.

 

These models, which range in size from 12 inches to several feet high, are part of a third grade unit on biographies, one of the many different genres that the girls read throughout the year. “We want them to understand how different accomplishments, happy moments, sad moments – how these all build a person to be who they are,” says teacher Christine Rogers.

 

Rogers developed the unit with Susan Mills, the other third grade teacher, five years ago. Far from just a book report, the project challenges students to incorporate a range of different skills: role playing, interviewing, presenting information in a written format and, of course, creating a model of their famous person. “There is literal comprehension [of understanding the information in the book] and inferential thinking within their reports, which are two of the things we work on within our reading skills,” Rogers explains.

Over the years, girls have chosen a range of characters to learn about, from presidents to artists and authors. For some, the project has sparked an ongoing interest in a subject. “One little girl has gotten really interested in Harriet Tubman, slavery and the Underground Railroad, so she is pulling books from the library, which is really exciting,” says Mills.

 

Rogers also appreciates the way that the project allows students to find common threads among the famous people. “They also see that they weren’t all just wealthy – some of them had very poor backgrounds and they were still strong and made it in the world,” Rogers says.

 

As part of the written report, students answer a range of questions, including “what was the best or happiest part of your childhood?,” “what are some of the hardest or most challenging things you had to do as an adult?,” and “how do you hope people will remember you?” This last question is Rogers’ favorite, because it lets her see what each student has learned about her famous person’s way of thinking. For example, one girl, writing as Roald Dahl, answered, “I hope that people will remember me for making books that make children want to read more. I hope that people will say that I was a child at heart and that I could write imaginative books.”

 

Rogers and Mills hope to keep this project for many more years – especially now that it is something that girls start to look forward to in earlier grades, after seeing the projects on display each year in the Elementary Center. “What we’ve found with this project is that there is a lot of excitement about learning and the library,” says Rogers. “What more can you ask for?”