Elementary, My Sweet Bean

This term’s workshop was focused on history – the task was to choose a person (or event/invention etc) of interest and present a 1-2 minute talk. As you can imagine, 2 minutes doesn’t leave much time to say a lot… it concentrates the mind on what’s important!
We had a host of famous characters visiting today (costumes were encouraged), including Queen Elizabeth II, Fanny Crosby, Mother Teresa, Samuel Morse, Lewis & Clarke & Sacagawea, as well as a history of the Cherokee nation, of the British East India Company, and a look at the history of dolls.
Sweet Bean went as Sherlock Holmes, to talk about his creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Rather than focusing on literature he talked about Conan Doyle’s contribution to forensic science and the way a criminal investigation is run. Here’s his talk –

He was a bit flustered about the microphone – he’d worked out an opening sequence with the pipe and magnifying glass, but he couldn’t work out how to add in the microphone… My blurry filming style probably doesn’t help!

Here’s a couple of shots of the great detective himself 🙂

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The cloak was an old skirt split at the back seam and hemmed and tucked in places, the deerstalker was two baseball caps sewn together and covered with dark fabric, and the pipe was cardboard and papier mache, with paint and a foil embellishment to finish.
A tiring day, but satisfying.
Now, time for bed…