My children are very lucky to have numerous relatives who are educators. My mother-in-law has worked in school administration for years. This experience has given her an ease with all kids that makes handling parks or birthday parties (in other words, activities with many children) a breeze. My mom is a Montessori teacher who has written Sunday School curriculum and numerous craft and activity books. When my mom is around, my children are constantly crafting and learning new skills. Within an hour of her arrival after Baby Anne was born, she had Meg working on a beginner's sewing project (see picture).
Clearly my sister inherited my mother's talent with children. My sister is an elementary school teacher who has a great skill for working with kids who need a little extra attention. She also has that teacher's instinct for keeping kids occupied with something that will capture their imagination. Last spring she did precisely that with Meg.
Clearly my sister inherited my mother's talent with children. My sister is an elementary school teacher who has a great skill for working with kids who need a little extra attention. She also has that teacher's instinct for keeping kids occupied with something that will capture their imagination. Last spring she did precisely that with Meg.
Meg and Clare love fairies. They are constantly dressed up as fairy princesses and they are obsessed with all things Tinker Bell. So when we traveled to Georgia for Spring Break last year to visit my family, my sister was ready for them. While Meg was visiting at her house, my sister and Meg painted a fairy door and then put it in the garden at my parents' house. When Meg woke up the next morning, she checked the door and found pixie dust sprinkled all around the fairy door. My sister gave her a jar and Meg collected the dust. She put a piece of paper on the jar that said "Pixie Dust" in her 4-year-old handwriting and later placed that pixie dust on a shelf in her room.
The pixie dust still sits in Meg's room and this past Thursday she decided to take it to school for "show and share." One of her teachers later told me that Meg carefully shared with the class all the details of making the door with her aunt and later finding the fairy dust. Just as the original project had captured Meg's imagination, the story of the project apparently captured the imagination of her classmates. One mother later told me that her daughter had repeated Meg's story to her own family as well as friends whom they were visiting and declared, "See, there was a REAL fairy." Another mother told me she found her daughter chopping up little pieces of a play feather boa. When the mother asked what she was doing, the girl replied, "Making fairy dust like Meg found."
I am very impressed with my sister's teaching skills. She not only inspired the child she was working with. She inspired numerous children--a year later--whom she never met. Truly, it is this type of thing that forms a childhood. I have no doubt that this little afternoon project (along with my sister's later work of spreading pixie dust) will be a memory that Meg will take into adulthood.
The pixie dust still sits in Meg's room and this past Thursday she decided to take it to school for "show and share." One of her teachers later told me that Meg carefully shared with the class all the details of making the door with her aunt and later finding the fairy dust. Just as the original project had captured Meg's imagination, the story of the project apparently captured the imagination of her classmates. One mother later told me that her daughter had repeated Meg's story to her own family as well as friends whom they were visiting and declared, "See, there was a REAL fairy." Another mother told me she found her daughter chopping up little pieces of a play feather boa. When the mother asked what she was doing, the girl replied, "Making fairy dust like Meg found."
I am very impressed with my sister's teaching skills. She not only inspired the child she was working with. She inspired numerous children--a year later--whom she never met. Truly, it is this type of thing that forms a childhood. I have no doubt that this little afternoon project (along with my sister's later work of spreading pixie dust) will be a memory that Meg will take into adulthood.
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