My childhood was full of happiness. This was mainly due to the fact that my sister and I had (and still have) two loving, fun and incredible parents. My parents spent a lot of time with us. We played games together, ate meals together, read stories, kissed, hugged and snuggled. Through the years I received a lot of encouragement. They both always told me that I would make a great teacher when I grew up. They told me I was named after my mom's grandma, Laura, who was a teacher. My dad also loved the name Laura because it was the name of his favorite teacher growing up. It's no surprise that I enrolled in an education program at college.
I now live about 60 miles north of my family. I love when they come to visit my husband and I and I also enjoy going back "home" for the weekend. My mom always offers to help me work on classroom projects when she can. On one of her visits it worked out that she could spend the morning in my Preschool classroom. My students were so happy to meet her. She helped with an art project and read them stories.
One story that she brought was "The Wee Kitten Who Sucked Her Thumb" by Lucinda McQueen. She showed them a photo (pictured above) of her reading that book to me when I was young. The story is about a mother cat who tried to get advice from her friends for how to stop her kitten from sucking her thumb. After several bad ideas, she finally found a friend who said the right thing: "Leave her alone and she will stop sucking her thumb all by herself." The mother cat did just that and soon enough her kitten was no longer sucking her thumb. I remember loving that story when I was little because I loved to suck my thumb too.
When I was little my dad would tell me a "Skipper story" every night before bed. Those stories were made up adventures that he had with his dog, Skipper, when he was a boy. Every night I looked forward to laying with my dad and hearing those stories. As an adult I love stories. I love reading stories to children and making up silly stories for them just as my dad did when I was little.
Hello Laura,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading about your inspirations to becoming a teacher. My great-grandmother was also and educator/administrator for 30 years and hearing the stories she would tell help reassure me I was heading in the right profession. As educators, it is important to remember that parents are a child's first teachers, just as your parents were for you. I hope you can continue to inspire children through the use of books as it not only is a great conversation, but children can also relate to the concepts when they can see how main characters solve problems in the stories. Wonderful post this week!