First, Amelia and I took turns painting chocolate faces inside the clear plastic cups.

Then, Amelia got to work mixing up pudding tinted green!

Here are our scary creatures ready to get put into the refrigerator. That’s Amelia’s creation in the middle!

Yum, it was a hit!

Perhaps the most interesting observation her teacher made (over and over again) is that Amelia has advanced fine motor skills for her age. This is really not a surprise since the same observation was made by her Parents As Teachers educator since around 18 months. However, apparently at school, it is Amelia’s cutting skills in particular that has impressed her teacher. At one point, she pulled out a sheet that had various lines drawn (straight, zigzag, curvy, etc.) that the kids were supposed to following while cutting with the scissors. I am pretty sure Amelia’s cutting work sample was better than what I could have done. Freakishly good, the teacher compared her to a 5-6 year old. She also mentioned that Amelia likes to cut strings of yarn during choice time and make art with them by gluing them on paper.

This, of course, is especially humorous given her recent run in with the scissors.

The teacher also mentioned that Amelia has no problems transitioning from home to school (in fact, not a single tear has been shed) and gets along well with the other children. She shares, take turns, and seeks help from the teacher if she assistance resolving a problem. She listens to the stories, participates in discussions, sings the songs, and engages other kids in play at recess. According to the teacher, she chooses to play with the dollhouse during choice time, as well as cooking in the kitchen, dressing up, and playing with the sensory table (in addition to the yarn cutting, apparently).

Her teacher was pleased with Amelia’s knowledge of her shapes, colors, letters, and numbers. She is able to sort by two different characteristics. She guesses that Amelia will be reading by next year given what she already knows and how quickly she is picking up letter sounds (and she even had a plan on how to help her accomplish this!). Also, by the time she enters kindergarten, she predicts Amelia will be skip counting by 2′s, 5′s, and 10′s. She complimented her language and said it is more comparable to the 5 year olds in the class than the 3 year olds (hard to believe considering I was at one time worried about her speech development). At one point during the conference, she mentioned that she could tell that Amelia is from “good genes” and asked if Jason was a doctor. She even complimented Amelia’s advanced way of holding the pencil–apparently some kindergardeners haven’t even perfected a grip that impressive. Interestingly, though, I have NEVER shown her how to hold the pencil a certain way.

She doesn’t have any academic concerns about Amelia starting kindergarten so young (she will just BARELY be 5). Of course, we will be revisiting this before we make the decision whether to send her at age 5 or not.

On her written comments, the teacher referred to Amelia as a “very bright little girl with a vast knowledge of vocabulary words”. She also called her a “fun child!”.

Not surprisingly, Jason and I were pretty impressed with her teacher as well. She was so knowledgeable about every topic we discussed. Our 15 minute conference turned into a 45 minute discussion. I was impressed to learn that her teacher has her Master’s degree plus 30. I don’t know a whole lot about pre-school teachers, but I find it hard to believe that that is common. We were happy that she was eager to discuss her thoughts on Amelia’s future and gave us some great input about her (possible) future elementary school if we were to stay in this area.

I can hardly wait to see what she has to say at Amelia’s spring conference! This was definitely a proud parent moment (if you can’t already tell!).

Anyway, with Amelia’s sudden interest in all things cemetery AND with me scoring a tombstone candy making kit at 90% off last year after Halloween, I thought we’d make a dessert combining her love of candy and death.

I made some brownies and then started delegating jobs to Amelia. First, she was in charge of making the icing a nice cemetery grass color.

This craft was great! Once I showed her how to do it, she could copy it over and over on her own. Every single step! That might be a first.

We love our new centerpiece!

This weekend, we had the chance to do just that. Over the summer, Jason received word that the 1998-1999 Truman basketball team was going to be inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame. Jason was a part of that team and it was an incredibly exciting season, ending with the team placing third in the nation. The induction was held in conjunction with Homecoming weekend.

We left Friday morning (since the induction was that evening) and arrived in the ‘Ville with enough time to take a tour of the campus and show the little one around. We originally were not planning on taking Amelia, thinking it may be hard to wrestle her during the 3+ hour ceremony. But I am SO GLAD we brought her along–she had a great time!

(As is evidenced in the picture).

I bought a roll of it about a year ago and have used it for so many projects. Often I use it to “laminate” things that I want to use again and again. Looking at the roll, though, it really doesn’t look like I’ve used any of it.

I saw this idea on No Time For Flashcards. She used a stencil, but I thought contact paper would be a better choice to keep the paint out. I cut some pumpkin shapes out of the paper and then stuck it to the construction paper. Amelia did her job by painting the page black–or brown, really (we had to mix our own “black” since we didn’t have any).

After it had dried, Amelia got a kick out of pulling up the contact paper, revealing the orange pumpkins.

I was inspired by this project and am planning to do a similar version of this painting technique with Amelia for the baby’s room. Here’s hoping it goes as smoothly as this one!

As usual, we arrived during the first hour they were open to take advantage of all of the free activities available. Even though we are Zoo Friends now, old habits die hard! We were a little disappointed that the stingrays were already gone for the season, so we headed straight for the carousel. It was hard to decide which girl enjoyed it more!

After a couple rides around we headed to the Children’s Zoo. Amelia did some playing while Elise did some sleeping.

On a subconscious level, Amelia must know this. She received the book “How a Seed Grows” a long time ago from her Grandma. It is a pretty technical book that sets up a science experiment growing bean plants. The other day she picked it off of her bookshelf as one of the books she wanted me to read.

As I read the experiment to her, she said, “We should do that!”. I told her that we could and she looked at me very seriously and said, “No, I want to do it with Daddy”.

Well, okay then.

On Sunday, the two of them set up the project much to Amelia’s delight. First, the book outlined how to use an egg container to serve as a holder for the seeds. It noted that holes should be poked in the bottom of each spot. So, (after running out to get a dozen eggs before breakfast specifically to use the carton for this project) they cleaned out the carton and then Amelia got some good practice poking holes in the container with a screwdriver.