Architects of the future? Students build their own monuments

June 6, 2003

For $17.83, you too can own your own national monument. Really, it is possible. All you need is some foam core board, glue, felt, paper and the Internet. It is amazing how creative children can be. Give them an assignment and some craft items and before you know it, a piece of art is born.

Add to that an assignment from third-grade teacher Paul Longmuir and you never know what they will come up with. These past few weeks, Longmuir's Vintage Parkway Elementary School class was studying national monuments. The idea was for the kids to create a design that resembles one of the many monuments that are featured throughout the United States.

For the assignment, the eight- and nine-year-olds were able to pick from such icons as the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore or the Golden Gate Bridge. Some of these places the kids have only had the opportunity to see in pictures, but Longmuir has been spending quite a bit of time in class to teach the kids about our nation's great treasures.

Judging from the finished project, the kids took their assignment seriously. Sommer Dalton's mom knew that she would have no problem completing the assignment. She gave her some clay, paper and glue and said have at it. In the end, Sommer created Niagara Falls as seen from above.

Graciela Nunez knew that she wanted to model the Statue of Liberty, but she was concerned about how she was going to make the body. She spent some time looking up the information in an encyclopedia and found out about the building's dimensions, the items that Liberty held in her hands and even the surrounding area around Liberty Island.

After consulting with her mom, Graciela decided the best bet was to use an old Barbie doll for Liberty's body. Not just any Barbie doll would do; it was very hard to choose which one to give up for the project. In the end, "Ken" made the ultimate sacrifice and Graciela decorated the body with pewter green fabric and even foiled the top of Liberty's torch.

Graciela wasn't the only student in the class to choose the famous statue. Tori Remy decorated her Barbie doll, even spray painting the entire figure. Lindsay Strong also fashioned the statue from clay.

Millions can say they have seen it, but few can say they have constructed it: the Golden Gate Bridge, especially with such detail. Two of the students, Taylor Havens and Diane Valadez, did quite a job replicating the bridge. The two did a great job, and I must say that with traffic as light as it was in both their displays I would rather drive on one of those models than on the real thing.

My son Ben and Frankie Farwell both submitted different views of the Washington Monument. Ben's was a close-up version on the 555-foot-tall building that stands in Washington, D.C. Frankie's showed a farther-away version that including the fountain of water that stands behind the monument. It was a great job.

Not all the projects had names on them, but they were all done very well. There was the USS Arizona, Mount Rushmore, a cookie dough version of the Statue of Liberty, and a rendition of Mount St. Helens that came complete with a sample of volcanic dust from the famous volcano.

While every one of the children did an excellent job, Alex Thomas-Bradley did a great job on his interpretation of the Liberty Bell. It was made out of clay and attached to a piece of poster board.

Longmuir said that he was happy about all of the extra work that the kids did on the project and many found that the Internet was a great source of drawings, photos and information for their projects. He felt that all his students learned something very valuable on this project. They seemed to have fun doing it, too.

Roni Gehlke's column on life in Oakley appears each week in the Brentwood News.

Distributed by the Contra Costa Times

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