presidential walk through time

yesterday the 5th grade class put together a morning with the presidents.  the kids have been working on their reports for a few weeks and then they had to do a speech about why their president should be voted into the presidential hall of fame.

andrew chose to do his report on george washington.  i'm not sure why he chose washington but andrew learned a lot about who george washington was and what he did to create the office of the presidency.  i love that he knew all of these random facts about him and how interested he was in the battles that he fought in.

as part of the speech the kids needed to dress up as their president, or first lady or brother.  the speech was told from that point of view.  washington is not the easiest president to dress but we came up with something pretty cool.

he wore baseball pants and long white socks with black dress shoes.  i glued ribbon to jordan's old suit using glue dots to temporarily adhere them to the collar.  i also sewed on the gold buttons and glued some tassels to the shoulder for epaulettes.  one of them fell off while he was getting into the car so he didn't have it for his speech.  we used a piece of white fabric for the shirt collar and fluffed it to make it look right.

the best part of his costume was the wig.  i had purchased some batting and made an ok wig with it, but honestly i was not happy with it.  so the day before the speech i googled george washington wig and found a tutorial using a du rag and cotton balls.  it would be rushed but andrew and i knew we could pull it off.  a quick trip to the 99cent store and we had everything we needed. andrew and i glued cotton balls all over the du rag and let it dry.  it came out great.

his speech was perfect.  story, facts and humor were exactly what she asked for.  and bravo to him for going first.  it's tough but he handled it well.

all of the kids were amazing.  each learning about their president and then telling us about them in an interesting and unique way.  i know i learned a lot.

washington and his bff lincoln enjoying some powdered donuts after all of the speeches.

and kudos to their teacher who is truly the best.  she made the presidents come alive and i know the kids, and many of the parents, learned a lot.  thank ms. green for brining this all together!!

i'm trying to figure out how to upload the video.  i'll repost when i have it.