A Girl and her Art

Amelia has been working the easel over big time! She has a renewed interest in all things art. Drawing and coloring are her go to activities when I am busy making dinner or feeding Henry. I thought I would capture a few of her creations, since I cannot possibly keep every one of them.

The first one is her picture of Rosa Parks riding in the bus. The man underneath the bus is the angry bus driver. I cannot remember how we got on the topic of Rosa Parks one day heading to school, but I ran out of time to tell her the whole story before I dropped her off so I told her I would finish it when I picked her up. The second she opened the door to get in at pick up, she wanted to hear more about the "lady on the bus". We talked about it for 2 days straight and the next thing I knew she was painting this picture on her easel. Jason followed up with some books from the library about Ms. Parks. I love that kids this age have such an open mind and a genuine interest in knowledge!

A princess, complete with tiara and heart wand.

A really blurry picture of Amelia's rainbow. She has really tried to get the colors in the correct order lately.

The Wizard of Oz gang (tin man, scarecrow, dorothy (with red bows at the end of her braids), and lion) on the yellow brick road. Oops! I almost forgot Toto there on the ground in the blue basket.

This is Amelia's drawing of Martin Luther King, Jr. She was looking at a picture of him and made sure she had the hair and eye color right. She was also thrilled to draw her first mustache.

Amelia got herself into some trouble the other day and she sat down to write this card for me. She did it completely by herself in the other room and I was suprised that she got everyone's name down so legibly. "Amelia" is on top, then heart "mom", heart "dad" and then Henry underneath. (Henry gets two hearts).

Amelia's class learned about the ocean one week at preschool. Then, she came home and drew this crab!

This is her Texas-inspired lasso.

a "beautiful necklace"

Amelia came home with these flowers one day from school. The paper was all folded (obviously by her) and stuffed into an envelope (her favorite thing to do at the 'writing center'). But I thought it was really beautiful and luckily I was able to flatten it out some. I already had a frame on hand, so I threw some construction paper behind it and I LOVE the way it looks hanging in the playroom.

Everyday I am amazed at what else comes from her box of markers and scrap paper. I love to see her creations and experience the world through her eyes.

History Buff

History was never, ever a subject that I was interested in as a child.  It seemed that every History class I had in school was beyond boring and it wasn't until I was teaching myself that things started to click.  I was lucky enough to take a class of teenaged boys all the way to Washington, DC back when I worked with juvenile offenders.  The trip was rather stressful as you can imagine, but we had worked so hard to learn all of the historical significance of the various sites and monuments around the city.  That is no easy task. 

Now that I have my own little captive audience, I love to share and learn about important historical figures. Amelia knows about Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Amelia Earhart, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Helen Keller among others.  History has never been more interesting to me than when I study it with her.

On this day after school, she had finished practicing her spelling words and wanted some free time to draw.  When I had come back over to come on her, she proudly showed me her drawing of the 16th president, Abraham Lincoln.  He was "freeing the slaves" she explained and wrote, "God gave him the courage to do that".  I was so proud!  It's good to know she is listening.  Although, maybe I shouldn't be surprised, this is the child who drew a picture of Rosa Parks on the bus at age 4.

Here's to raising a little girl that loves history instead of hating it!