While my kids portrayed 1950s kids, I portrayed Jacqueline Kennedy from 1962
1950s fast food for dinner
Since the 1950s saw the debut of interstate highways, travel, motels, fast-food, and drive-ins, our dinner came from one of those iconic places that opened in 1950.
While we ate, we listened to fifties music.
We laid postcards of LBJ’s home in Stonewall, Texas on the table for the centerpiece, to prompt discussion on 1960s events.
Near our old Texas home, we’d visit often, and one time met Ladybird and her daughter Linda Robb from Virginia!
Also on the table as a centerpiece was my son’s origami project based on the book Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, which is the true story about a Japanese girl dying of leukemia as a result of the fall out of the atomic bomb that dropped on Hiroshima.
I had lots of paper cranes I had folded and strung into sets to form 1000, based on this story, which my Japanese friend had told me about in college.
Then my son played 1950s music on the piano.
Television Quiz Show: This is Your History
Since television debuted in the 1950s, we centered our presentation around famous programs of the era.
Creating our version of the iconic 1950s quiz show, we named ours, This is Your History.
Our photographer portrayed the studio audience and the tech guy.
Guest host: Jacqueline Kennedy
The game show guest hostess was Jacqueline Kennedy, because she had just starred in a television special, A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy.
As Jackie, I told the story of the need to restore and redecorate the White House in a historical manner, and rescue nearby Lafayette Square from destruction.
Jacqueline Kennedy interviews the contestants
After I introduced the two contestants, teenagers from the fifty’s era, I interviewed them.
In her early years Jackie worked as a camera girl and reporter for the Washington-Times Herald.
Shortly after she met John F. Kennedy, she interviewed him.
The interview questions were aimed at their thoughts on the fears of the Cold War while growing up in the fifties and their hopes for the future.
Jacqueline Kennedy hosts This is Your History
Then we began our game show, This is Your History, based on current events of the 1950’s and 1960’s, done Jeopardy style.
I stayed up late Friday night to put the answers/questions together.
Someone asked me where these questions came from.
I made them up myself by gathering all the books the kids had read the last few weeks (we squeezed 9 weeks into 6) and formed the answers/questions based on their assigned readings.
Unlike the movie Quiz Show that tells the true story of the 1950s scandal, my kids never saw the questions ahead of time.
They answered everything from the top of their heads.
My son created buzzers at the last minute for the game!
Ice cream floats with cherry coke
We wrapped everything up with ice cream floats and cherry coke while we listened to fifties music.
Even though my kids had to think off the top of their heads, this history presentation is one of their favorites. It’s always fun to mix things up and stretch the brain a little bit.
