Help history come alive with mannequins

Every year when my first graders come for "Meet the Teacher" how; I know what will catch their interest first: my mannequin. In autumn, she's dressed as a glittering queen. Standing at a respectful distance, the children try to read the sign that identities her as Queen Elizabeth I of England. After absorbing the scene, they come to me filled with questions. Who is she? What are we going to do with her? These questions begin our study of social studies.

When I began teaching in the primary grades, I searched for ways to communicate my love of history. I feel it's vitally important to teach our children about the past and to hand down the stories of our culture. I didn't want my children to find social studies dry, and I found the conventional "expanding horizons" format of the standard social studies curriculum incomplete.

Expanding horizons curricula is based on the idea that primary students have little concept of time and place. They understand the world only through their personal experience: the self, the family, the local community. As the child ages, the curriculum covers broader aspects of the world.

The heroes of history. In my own classroom, I found that although my children. had little comprehension of historical generalizations and less of dates and times, they clearly understood the stories I told them about people. They were fascinated with tales of Queen Elizabeth I; they loved hearing about Thomas Jefferson and his wonderful house, and they waited eagerly to hear the outcome of Paul Revere's wild ride. They were as interested in real heroes and heroines as in the superheroes on television.

Putting the pieces together. From this beginning, I expanded my idea of teaching through biography. To stimulate interest, I wanted to add strong visual elements. My budget precluded expensive equipment, so I decided to attempt simple exhibits featuring costumed mannequins, similar to those I had seen in children's museums.

My first hurdle was acquiring the expensive mannequins. Fortunately, a dress shop gave me some parts of female mannequins an odd assortment of torsos, arms and portions of legs. Later, I acquired a complete male mannequin. Because many historical figures wore long dresses, the unmatched legs and torsos were of little concern. With plywood, I made a sturdy podium-like base and fastened a torso to the podium with lag bolts. Then, I added a wooden crossbar with two legs attached. Skirts that fall below the knee hide the gap between the legs and torso.

A royal ensemble. Creating a character was the next step. I chose Queen Elizabeth I (the queen in "Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat") to complement our study of nursery rhymes. I consulted several books and found a dress I could approximate.

I'm not an accomplished seamstress, but I learned that only creativity was necessary to simulate her dress within budget. Chicken wire and a ruffled slip formed the distinctive shape of the hoops worn under Elizabethan skirts. The outer garment was made from an old evening dress modified with an overskirt (made from brocade draperies), a false satin bodice and tightly stuffed sleeves. A gold cape, a pleated, starched lace ruff and lots of thrift store jewelry completed the basic ensemble.

The queen was so successful that I added other figures. In time, I learned to modify their clothes to simplify and speed the dressing process. (Mannequins can be harder to dress than two-year-olds!) Instead of sewing trouser seams, I connect the trouser sides with Velcro after the mannequin is dressed. Slitting dresses and coats in the back enables me to put on the costume one side at a time. Because the mannequins don't move, the fabrics can be cheap and the sewing imperfect. Hidden hot glue, Velcro and staples often save me. Any item that doesn't show is eliminated. I make only the front of vests because the coat covers the back. Wigs, shoes, glasses, etc. can be purchased from thrift stores.

A cast of many. Everyone responds so warmly to the exhibits that each year, I add new characters. My array includes Columbus, a pilgrim woman, Florence Nightingale, a colonial figure, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington Carver, Helen Keller, Indira Gandhi and a Nubian princess.

Recently, I asked some of my former students about the mannequins. To my delight, most of them remembered all of the figures. One child vividly remembered the Helen Keller figure. "[There was] that lady who was blind and deaf and she had that really nice teacher named Annie who taught her to spell into people's hands so they could understand her...she was really, really bad until she got her teacher...and she loved flowers because she could smell them."

Parents have been enthusiastic, too. One parent told me, "I think this is a natural way to teach history to young children. Daniel... remembers things that he actually sees better than things that are just in a book."

Worth their weight. The mannequins have definitely been worth the effort put into them. The children gained a sense that history was made by. real people who, like themselves, like to laugh and were sometimes scared. In fact, they learned more than I knew.

While I was teaching history, the children were absorbing lessons about courage, character, honesty, dreams and the price of the choices we make in life. I realize now that biographies not only teach kids about who we are and where we came from, but also about the people they can become.

Copyright Early Years, Inc. Oct 1994
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved