Stepping Into the Past

Sophie gave a living history museum presentation on Helen Keller yesterday. Her class has been working on it for weeks. She had to have two artifacts to share (a tiny water pump and a Braille sample that she made out of glue and glitter), which were obtained a while ago. I knew that she'd been reading the books about Helen Keller that we have in our home library and that she'd written a short essay about her. And I knew the project was due yesterday. What I didn't know until Tuesday night was that she had to have a costume and have her presentation memorized. It appears that Sophie also forgot those two details. 

Tuesday evening and night included weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth over a presentation script that hadn't been written yet. And Sophie was stressed too. She finally finished writing it after 11pm and I sent her to bed. She didn't have it memorized, but maybe she could at least read through it several times before the appointed hour.

I had suggested a few different costume options, but none were up to snuff. Then, after I was tucked into bed, an image of a box in the basement came to mind. When I got up yesterday morning I ran downstairs and excavated the box of vintage clothes I inherited from my Grandma Miriam. Sure enough, there was a dress that looked perfect. Sophie agreed and happily put it on. We added a ribbon in her hair called her costume complete.

The reason she needed the presentation memorized was so she could make eye contact during her delivery. I had an idea. We enlarged her one and a half page script until it covered six and a half pages double spaced. Then, at Sophie's suggestion, we taped them together so that we had one loooong piece of paper. When she gave the presentation I stood behind her laptop screen and held the script just above the camera, out of sight of everyone except her. Then I slowly pulled the paper up as she read. I was essentially a human teleprompter.

Sophie was the first person to present during her time slot. She did a great job and her teacher gushed enthusiastically over how wonderful she thought it was. Sophie was thrilled and I was glad it was done. We talked afterward about some things that could have been done differently, like not waiting until the night before to write your script or tell mom that you need a period costume.

Before she got out of the dress, Topher asked if they could "have a ball." Sophie obliged.