Lady of Arlington

 This year as part of her 3rd grade curriculum, Miss Priss had to do a research project. The guidelines were very simple and gave the students a lot of room to be creative. Each student had to pick a topic, any topic, research that topic and present it to the class in some fashion. They could choose anything! Some kids chose science topics such as weather and volcanoes, while others chose to give information and history of toys like legos (that was a neat project!). Miss Priss wanted to give her classmates a lesson in history.

Over the past few months Miss Priss has shown an interest in the Civil War. So one day while admiring my Civil War shelf on our new bookshelves in the study, a book titled "Lady of Arlington" caught her eye. She had never really thought about the women during that time period. When we hear the word war, most of us automatically think male soldiers, not of the women they left at home! Once we started talking about the Lady of Arlington, Miss Priss knew exactly what she wanted to do her project about.

Mary Anna Randolph Custis Lee, wife of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, was referred to as the Lady of Arlington because she grew up at the Arlington House and loved the property all her life. She has a wonderful story being the wife of a beloved general and Miss Priss was excited to share with her classmates what she learned.

The students were given the choice to present their findings in a variety of ways. They could write a report, make a poster, give a speech, make a diagram or a diorama, dress up or demonstrate an experiment for the class. Miss Priss chose a combination of making a poster, writing a report and dressing up to share her information. The work in the following pictures was done solely by Miss Priss herself! We looked up information and printed pictures together, but she designed the poster and wrote the report herself. Pretty impressive!

The dress she is wearing took a little more time and talent from a wonderful friend of ours. Mrs. Tucker has been sewing for me for what seems like my entire life. She made Drum Major uniforms in high school, altered my wedding dress and many other things along the way. Now she is not only making things for me, but for my kiddos as well! She was kind enough to put this southern belle dress together for us and Miss Priss thinks it's the best thing ever! Mrs. Denise let us borrow her southern belle hat and Miss Priss was ready for the part.

Not only did she have a great time researching, Miss Priss learned a lot about the Lady of Arlington and how to do research. I am so proud of her for her hard work. She did a fabulous job! Oh and she's just cute a button too! ;)