Perry County Middle School Fifth Grade Class Turns into Wax Museum

Denita Schilli’s class in their costumes: (front from left) Leah Phillips (President Wm. Howard Taft), Taylor Milliano (Clara Barton), Cheyenne Cole (Annie Oakley), Marissa Arrington (Pocahontas); (2nd row from left) Kylie Wheat (Amelia Earhart), Audrey Johnson (President Theodore Roosevelt), Austin Hotop (Abraham Lincoln), Layne Hlavck (Houdini), Chase Weir (Jeff Gordon), Justin Owens (Wilbur Wright); (3rd row from left) MaKayla Lowes (Laura Ingles Wilder), Andy Truong (Barack Obama), Cade Beck (Neil Armstrong), Aiyana Cail (Cleopatra), Alison DeOliveira (Betsy Ross), Heather Wood (Elizabeth Cady Stanton), Jasmyn Mahathath (Mia Hamm), Madison Berkbigler (Jesse James); (4th row from left) Ryan Toler (Albert Einstein), Quentin Revelle (Mark Twain), Caeley Tripp (Sacagawea), Dakota Voudrie (Jerome Bettis), Bailey Hamlin (Michael Jordan), and Taylor Hoehn (Narcissa Whitman)

During the month of February, Perry County Middle School students from Denita Schilli's fifth grade class worked on a class project that turned their classroom into a wax museum...with them being the statues.

"Each of the students chose a famous person from the past or present and read a biography about that person," said Schilli. "After reading the book they did more research if necessary so they could present the information to the rest of the class and to visitors to our classroom."

This project was different from other research projects Schilli did with her students because the students had to actually "become" the person they researched. "The students had to dress and act like he or she was the character they were talking about," said Schilli. "They used things from around the house to dress up in and they practiced acting like their character. We pinned a button to their shirt and when it was pressed, the statue came to life as the character they were portraying."

The wax museum featured four presidents, a queen, famous people from the west, explorers of land and air, famous writers, soccer, football and basketball players, a race car driver, a scientist, a magician, a famous flag maker and a person for women's rights. "This was the best attended wax museum by parents and relatives since I started having wax museums," said Schilli.