How to Build the Pentagon in Four Hours

One of the big 3rd grade projects of the year is the building of Washington D.C. All three classes spend 3 days with foam core, hot glue guns, scissors, copious amounts of tempera paint and a little ingenuity to build most of the major landmarks in the District. Of course, the teachers need all hands on deck, so parents sign up for blocks of time when they can help the kiddos.

I had signed up to help Zac's group on Wednesday for about 3 hours. Fortunately, Zac and his compadres were assigned the Pentagon--better than something more obscure (Bureau of Engraving and Printing--anyone know what THAT looks like?). On the other hand, it was among the most complex of the buildings, for obvious reasons. On Monday, the basic structure had been constructed and painted by another parent. The boys had helpfully made a parking lot complete with stripes, a marbled entryway and a partitioned off a bathroom (about 1/10 of the entire building). They were yipped up to make a toilet for it when I got there.

It took a little while to figure out where all the supplies were. We were out in the hallway because of space limitations, along with several other groups. We had few outlets for the glue guns and had to squeeze everything against the wall to stay out of people's way. I delegated tasks and encouraged them to choose aspects to highlight that actually taught us about the Pentagon. So we dropped the toilet plans for a while and make a monitoring room with six screens, an office, the 9/11 memorial, and the helipad. By the time we cleaned up, we had made pretty good progress. One of the kiddos was a whiz at finding stuff on the Internet to print off and cut out (the school had a hallway cart with multiple laptops and wireless access which was very helpful). Even better, the boys were able to secure a dollhouse toilet and pedestal sink from the teacher to furnish their bathroom. Our internet whiz kid printed off a tiny newspaper for the Lego man to read when he vists the john.

I decided to come back for about an hour today to get the kids finished up. When I got there, Lego man was already on the potty reading his paper. I lost count of how many third grade boys walked by and were highly impressed by this aspect of the Pentagon. We created a satelite dish, a colonaded outside entry and placed the cafeteria in the appropriate place in the building. We were done! The guys proudly placed their masterpiece in the appropriate spot and I stole a look at several other building scattered around the rooms. The children were amazingly creative and I look forward to seeing the finished product at Open House night!