Middle Gate Students Share A Living Timeline Of History

By Eliza Hallabeck

From representing the American Revenue Act of 1764, popularly known as the Sugar Act, to taking on local historical personas such as Charles Ives, a composer born in Danbury, Middle Gate School students were acting in an historical timeline on Friday, May 28.

Fourth grade students have completed a similar project in the past at the school, but this was the first year the grade four teachers — Linda Baron, Heidi Beauty, Tisha McCoy, John Sullivan and Ellen Therrien — decided to have students demonstrate their projects in a timeline fashion.

Students waited for visitors, either fellow Middle Gate students or parents, to enter their respective classroom and ask about their project. Some students studied historical personas, others lifestyles, such as what being a farmer would have been like, and others shared information about historical happenings, including the Salem Witch Trials.

The individual classrooms in the grade four wing represented different periods in history. As visitors started from the first and moved along the classroom corridor, they moved from the 1600s to modern history.

“We’ve been doing Connecticut history for the bulk of the school year,” said Ms McCoy. “So this is a culminating activity of all the things they learned.”

Ms McCoy’s classroom focused on the 1700s, and, for the girls, she said it was particularly interesting. There was little information recorded about women from that time period, she said, and the class “had to dig” to find those personas.

“And they made important contributions to our nation, especially during the Revolutionary War and the Underground Railroad.”

The change from the Living Biographies to the Living Museum format, Ms McCoy said, came after the social studies curriculum was rewritten.

Students created their own props and coordinated in groups to help create the projects.

“I’m Anna Warner,” student Rachel Daum said as she began her speech for her Living Museum presentation. “I was born on October 11, 1758, in Groton. I was an orphan at a young age, and went to live with Grandmother Mills on a farm.”

Rachel continued to explain her character had joined the Revolutionary War to help guard a bridge and help the wounded.

“Anna hated the British more than anything,” said Rachel. “I married a soldier named Elijah Bailey in 1783. We lived on for a very long time. I died when my dress caught on fire January 19, 1851.”

Each student in the Living Museum had a prepared dialogue to share with visitors. Some shared information in groups, like a family of Native Americans, made up by Jolene Risko, Alexa Leidlein, Connor DiNallo, and Thomas Skreli, in Ms Therrien’s classroom.

Ms Therrien said the class discovered individuals and project topics on their own.

“The biggest thing I have heard from people passing through the classrooms,” said Ms Therrien, “is how much of Connecticut history that we don’t know, and how much they are learning in little tidbits as they walk through, which is the whole purpose.”

A slideshow of photos from the event and audio of some of the students giving their presentations is available at www.newtownbee.com.