Honor someone special with a handcrafted monument! Explore national and local monuments for inspiration in your design.

• 1.

  Monuments are constructed to honor a person or event of importance in a community or country. Research with your classmates to find examples of national and local monuments. What do these monuments stand for? Would you change anything about them if you were the designer?

• 2.

  Think of a special person in your life that you would like to honor with a monument. Write a short paragraph about what makes that person important to you. How can you symbolize these qualities and form a monument to represent them? Sketch out some ideas on paper with Crayola® Colored Pencils. When you’re satisfied with your design, construct the monument using Crayola Model Magic®.

• 3.

  MM that is fresh from the pack will stick to itself. Dried pieces can be glued together. Utilize tools around the classroom to help you mold the Model Magic. Forks, combs, straws, cookie cutters and paper clips can all be effective modeling tools. Try using a marker as a rolling pin, or carefully cutting detailed shapes with scissors.

• 4.

  Allow the monument to air-dry and share with the class along with the paragraph you wrote about the person you’re honoring.

Standards

• LA: Read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grade level text complexity band independently and proficiently.
• LA: Know and use various text features (e.g., headings, tables of contents, glossaries, electronic menus, icons) to locate key facts or information in a text.
• LA: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade level topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.
• LA: Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace.
• SS: Describe ways in which language, stories, folktales, music, and artistic creations serve as expressions of culture and influence behavior of people living in a particular culture.
• SS: Identify and use various sources for reconstructing the past, such as documents, letters, diaries, maps, textbooks, photos, and others.
• SS: Compare and contrast different stories or accounts about past events, people, places, or situations, identifying how they contribute to our understanding of the past.
• SS: Use appropriate resources, data sources, and geographic tools to generate, manipulate, and interpret information.
• VA: Use different media, techniques, and processes to communicate ideas, experiences, and stories.
• VA: Use visual structures of art to communicate ideas.
• VA: Select and use subject matter, symbols, and ideas to communicate meaning.

Adaptations

• Possible classroom resources include: 13 Buildings Children Should Know by Annette Roeder; If Stones Could Speak: Unlocking the Secrets of Stonehenge by Marc Aronson; The Story of the Statue of Liberty by Betsy Maestro; The Washington Monument by Kristin L. Nelson; The Lincoln Memorial by Kristin L. Nelson; O, Say Can You See? America's Symbols, Landmarks, And Important Words by Sheila Keenan; Mount Rushmore by Andrew Santella
• Organize a class trip to a local or national monument. If possible, ask a tour guide to assist with sharing details about the monument. Prior to the trip, students write questions that they will focus on during the trip. Afterwards, students post learning to a class blog.
• As a class, students identify domestic and international monuments that they are interested in investigating. Students collaborate to write research questions to focus on during their investigations. Each student selects a single monument to research. Organize the research into a single PowerPoint slide and compile all slides into a complete PowerPoint presentation to share with students.
• Students use their research on monuments to compose a poem about their self-selected monument. Post these with a student sketch of the monument and its surrounding area.