Wax Museum

Today Lincoln and Ivan participated in a wax museum put on by our Homeschool Showcase group. For those that don't know what a wax museum is, basically each kid gets to pick a person they want to learn more about, they learn about that person, make a poster of that person, and then recite a paragraph or so of information about the person as if they were that person.

Since we've been doing the History of Flight for the last several months, my boys picked Orville and Wilbur Wright. Even though Wilbur is the older brother, Ivan didn't want to wear a fake mustache, so he wanted to be Wilbur, and let Lincoln be Orville. :) 

Leading up to the wax museum, we read several books (at Lincoln's reading level) about the Wright brothers. Lincoln decided he wanted to talk about how the plane worked (no surprise there), and Ivan wanted to talk about when they were kids. So this is what we came up with:

Ivan: Wilbur Wright

“My name is Wilbur Wright. When my brother Orville, and I were little we played with toy helicopters. These helicopters were a type of glider, when you spin them, their propellers help them glide to the ground. These toys were the beginning of our interest in flight.”

Lincoln: Orville Wright

“My name is Orville Wright. My brother Wilbur and I were inventors and mechanics who wanted to make a practical flying machine. We decided to experiment with a biplane and focus on a way to control the aircraft before adding an engine. We tested our gliders in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina because it was a windy place. Our glider had long, narrow wings, a movable rudder, and wing-warping controls that allowed the pilot to control the roll, pitch, and yaw of the plane. Once we could control the plane we built a small, light-weight engine. On December 17th 1903, I flew our plane for 12 seconds and landed in the sand 120 feet from where I started. This was the first controlled, powered flight in history.”  

They memorized the majority of their parts while riding circles around me on their bicycles in the drive way. They would circle around and around repeating lines, and when they could say a line all the way through without help, they got to ride to the stop sign and back to celebrate. I was kind of amazed, actually, at how fast they memorized while moving around. 

Aaron helped the kids make the poster on Friday evening. They helped pick the pictures they wanted, and they cut out the colored pieces for the background and glued everything on. Aaron also helped Lincoln build a model of the Wright brother's plane out of K'nex. It even had a movable rudder, and wing-warping controls. I was very impressed. Lincoln used the plane in his presentation to demonstrate roll, pitch, and yaw. 

I was so proud of both of them. They worked hard to learn their parts, and they did an awesome job at the wax museum. 

All the kids there did really well. I was so impressed with everyone. Fun characters and creative costumes. Love it! Homeschool is the best!