DOVER, DE — Delaware fourth-grade students will showcase their knowledge of the U.S. Constitution and Delaware’s role in the founding of the nation in a series of creative displays on view from November 13 to December 12, 2019 at Legislative Hall, located at 411 Legislative Ave. in Dover, Del. The home of Delaware’s General Assembly, Legislative Hall is open to the public Mondays through Fridays, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Admission is free but visitors must pass through a security checkpoint at the entrance to the building. For additional information on the competition, call 302-608-5328. For additional information about visiting Legislative Hall, call 302-744-4114.
Delaware Day commemorates the anniversary of Delaware becoming the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution on December 7, 1787. Six months later, on June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document thereby providing the two-thirds majority of the states needed to establish the Constitution as the law of the land.
Sponsored annually by Delaware’s secretary of state, the Delaware Day Fourth Grade Competition encourages students to study the Constitution and to discover Delaware’s role in its writing and ratification. Students’ observations are presented in a panel-display format that incorporates prose, artwork, songs and political cartoons. Each display is reviewed for historical accuracy, spelling, creativity and artistic merit.
A ceremony honoring the 2019 participants in the competition will be held on Saturday, December 7, 2019 at 10 a.m. at the Delaware Public Archives building located at 121 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. in Dover, Del. Admission is free.
The 2019 Delaware Day Fourth Grade Competition was planned and organized by the Delaware Department of State’s Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs in cooperation with representatives of Delaware Public Archives and the Division of the Arts. Several Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs employees served as judges for the history competition while employees of the Division of the Arts judged the entries on their artistic merits.