Elizabeth Blackwell

This week, Evie had a big project due to at school.  They had to choose a famous American to portray in a living wax museum.  They had to create a poster with facts about their person, cut a hole in it, and put their own faces in it so that they could give a little speech in the character of their person as their classmates visited their section of the museum.  I thought that was a really creative assignment.

All on her own (before I even knew about the project), Evie consulted her Who's Who book and chose Elizabeth Blackwell (who is actually from England but became the first female doctor in America so I guess she counts as a famous American).  Evie herself wants to be a nurse when she grows up, so I guess that's part of what inspired her.  Over the weekend, we got another book about Elizabeth Blackwell from the local bookstore and Evie enjoyed learning more facts about her, like how she stayed up studying all night and graduated at the top of her class.

Evie worked diligently to answer the questions in her packet and then create her poster.  This for me was one of those iconic mom moments I've always imagined - having a little kid to help with school homework.  She did a great job on it!

Evie has also been struggling with tying her shoes.  It seems that so many things come so easily to her that when she has something that isn't as easy, she sort of freaks out about it and refuses to try very hard.  We have talked about how overcoming challenges makes you a better person and how you need to have some stick-to-it-iveness about you in this world.  I'm not sure how much that kind of pep talk helps when you're in the moment, but we spent about 30 minutes one night practicing and practicing and the smile on her face when she got it was worth the tears.  I'm not sure she'll retain the skill very well since she only has a couple of pairs of shoes that have laces, but I was glad she persevered.