Third Grade Time Machine

Liv was assigned to read a biography and present a report about a historical figure. She was supposed to dress up as the person, so naturally we encouraged her to choose someone that we already had a costume for--she suggested Helen Keller, Amelia Earhart, or Harriet Tubman, but of course we didn't have any costumes for those upstanding and inspiring women. Ryan brought home some great, authentic Egyptian clothing so we felt we were brilliant in steering her toward Cleopatra.

After she started reading the biography and asking some, well, interesting questions, I decided I needed to read it myself. It quickly became apparent that my knowledge of Cleopatra was limited (where was I during that lecture in World History?) and that I did not know (or had forgotten) about Cleopatra's partying, adulterous, murderous ways. I'm pretty sure the third grade teachers didn't mean for the parents to have to find selections from the biography that were safe for her to read. Oh well, we already had the costume, right?

She ended up giving an age-appropriate report on Cleopatra and looked fabulous!

She got to make a poster about Cleopatra too and was able to use some of the fab photos that Ryan took on his trip to Egypt a few years ago.

Her speech was quite funny sandwiched in between 25 other kids who were dressed up as inspiring people who actually made the world better instead of murdering family members and committing all sorts of other unthinkable acts... that said, Liv did a great job with memorizing her report and managed to put a positive spin on a pretty bad chick. Here's a short video if you are inclined to listen and watch:



Way to go Olivia!