SHENANDOAH - Trinity Academy third-graders brought Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Mother Teresa, Amelia Earhart and others back to life Friday in a class project that was fun and educational.
The students of teacher Kim Kringe learned about the lives of historical people and dressed as the person they studied and used props in a creative way as part of their presentation while their classmates and parents watched and applauded.
"The children are excited and their excitement is contagious," Kringe said in introducing the program to the parents. "They have made me so looking forward to their reports today."
The "Biography Book Reports" project had each third-grader find an appropriate grade-level biography book and prepare an oral report on the real life story of the person. Kringe said the students had about one month to prepare.
"The first step was to read the book so they had enough information so they could share about the person's life," Kringe said. "The parents were encouraged to help. The children were supposed to do the reading by themselves, and then the parents would come onboard for summarizing and condensing the information that they read."
The children had a choice of a biography from Kringe's selection of grade-appropriate books.
After opening with a prayer, each student began their reports.
"Our reports will be given in chronological order, looking up the birthdays of the children's subjects," Kringe said.
The students and their subjects were:
- Aylen Vargas as Abigail Adams
- Christopher Long as John Chapman (Johnny Appleseed)
- Consuelo Barcenas as Sacajawea
- Hayden Lapointe as Abraham Lincoln
- Serena Kukowski as Susan B. Anthony
- Aliyah Dinofa as Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell
- Angalina Dinofa as Albert Einstein
- Autumn Gehrman as Helen Keller
- Caelan Quick as Babe Ruth
- Madison Kramer as Amelia Earhart
- Alex Macker as Walt Disney
- Kamryn Smith as Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss)
- Olivia Petusky as Mother Teresa
- Randy Wood as Sally Ride
As each student spoke, they held up items, such as flags, models, books, photos and drawings, even a representation of atomic bomb during the Einstein presentation.
Kringe acknowledged the assistance by the parents to their children in preparing for the presentations. She asked the children to face their parents and grandparents and applaud them.
"I hope the children have a little more love for biography books. That was the whole purpose of the project," Kringe said. "It's fun to learn about other people's lives, and so now they have some experience with that type of book and hopefully they'll want to read more biographies."