For Darlington third-graders, the annual wax museum project has become a beloved tradition, and this year’s theme celebrated students’ dreams and bucket list goals.
The wax museum is a special project put on by the third-graders. They study a specific person, write a report, practice a speech and create an exhibit dedicated to that person. They then dress as their subject and present their speech to everyone who stops by their exhibit.
However, in a change this year, instead of focusing on people they focused on special events and regions.
“The theme this year is America’s bucket list experiences. This is the largest group ever, with 34 students, so we had to have a broad theme to accommodate this many people,” third-grade teacher Steven McConnell said.
McConnell curated a list of the top 100 bucket list experiences in the United States for the students to choose from. They were also divided up by different regions, and around 30 states were represented at the museum.
The wide variety of bucket list events ranged from the Indy 500 and Academy Awards to the National Cherry Blossom Festival, Mardi Gras and Broadway.
Students also prepare their speech in Spanish, as part of Darlington’s third-grade curriculum, so whoever visits their exhibit can choose to hear either the English speech or Spanish speech.
In addition, the students made an infomercial for their subject in their technology class and a clay sculpture in art class.
Virginia Ledbetter studied New York Fashion Week for her project and even created two dresses for the display. She said she went to Hobby Lobby to pick out fabric and patterns and used hot glue to put the pieces together.
“My mom is really good at designing stuff and I want to be just like her,” she said.
Sawyer Booker did his project on Broadway and dressed up as the title character of “Phantom of the Opera.”
He said he chose Broadway because he really likes performing in shows and hopes to one day be on Broadway, too.
This article was originally published in the March 25 issue of the Rome News-Tribune.
Click here to see a photo gallery from the Third-Grade Wax Museum.
