Washington Monument

The Washington Monument is a really tall building in Washington D.C. that was built to honor George Washington, who was the first president of the United States. It's like a huge pencil that points up to the sky! It's really tall, like 555 feet tall! Do you know how tall that is? It's like taking 5 and a half school buses and stacking them on top of each other!

The Washington Monument made it into the history books because it wasn't built all at once. It took a really long time to build! In fact, it wasn't even finished until 40 years after George Washington died! Can you imagine that?! That's like taking almost as long as your great-grandparents have been alive!

The idea for the monument came up right after George Washington died, but it wasn't until years later that they started building it. They had to stop building it during the Civil War, and then start again after the war was over. You know how you have toys that you put together with different pieces? That's how they built the Washington Monument! They used a lot of really heavy stones to build it, and they put it together like a puzzle.

Nowadays, the Washington Monument is a really cool place to visit. You can take an elevator to the top and look out through the windows to see all over Washington D.C. You can see the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Capitol building. It makes you feel pretty special to be up so high!