It takes a brave parent to dress up as a Founding Father for his son’s fifth-grade class. But Alan Toporovsky, a White Plains dentist, did just that this morning at the Westchester Day School in Mamaroneck. He emerged in a Benjamin Franklin costume complete with knickers, spectacles and a hideous gray wig.

“The things we do for our children,” he said, walking around in brightly buckled shoes.

Toporovsky was recruited by teacher Donald Tedesco, who gained renown for his Actionville program at Mamaroneck’s Hommocks Middle School. He was named America’s outstanding elementary school teacher in 1999 by the Walt Disney Co.

Tedesco told us he was “surprised and annoyed” that Franklin’s 300th birthday (Jan. 17, 1706) had passed by virtually unnoticed in New York state. To fix that, he held a birthday fair with professionals from various fields that Franklin had a hand in: journalism, libraries, the postal service, a police department, politics, and so on. I was there to talk about journalism, and the kids in Tedesco’s class gave me some history lessons about the reach of Ben Franklin’s legacy.

“He made a lot more than a light bulb,” said Bianca Levy, 10, who is in Tedesco’s class. “He invented Starbucks.”

Starbucks?

“He had the idea of making a coffee sit-down place,” explained her 10-year-old classmate Yaela Halper.

To learn even more, check out PBS’ online multimedia presentation, complete with a teacher’s guide.