One of the things I enjoyed during my years of teaching preschool were the relationships I made with the kidlets and their families. Social media has made staying ‘connected’ to those older kidlets–if not outright adults–and their families much easier, turning relationships ‘then’ to ‘now’ and I cherish those relationships. It was just that kind of continued relationship that lead to a really, really fun event for me that I think will have some wonderful benefits for young children in the area.
Maggie Douglas is a past preschool kidlet, now UW student living in the Pi Beta Phi sorority. Sororities and fraternities are community service oriented and raise money for worthwhile causes. Each sorority (or fraternity) has a philanthropic cause they support. Pi Beta Phi promotes literacy; Maggie’s the philanthrophy chair. Hearing that, I shared how, naturally, I felt renting toys made sense for many, many reasons, but that I felt strongly children should OWN as many of their OWN books as possible.
And that’s when she came up with a brilliant idea! 
She asked if I would lead a yoga class during Work Week. (Work Week for sororities is a hectic, busy, arduous week of preparation for Rush) And to get in to the yoga class girls would have to bring a book…..I said “Of course!”
On Thursday September 8th I drove over to my alma mater. I was shocked and thrilled to see the crowd of yoga students Maggie had gathered together! I thought we were going to practice there at the sorority house, but I was in for another surprise–we were going to the IMA! Mind you, back in my day the IMA was nice, but now it’s incredible! We had a mat room all to ourselves! 
I guided the girls through a flow style sequence with a ‘wave’ segment in the middle which I thought appropriate since the UW started ‘The Wave!
Following practice, my car was loaded up with the first installment of books! It’s going to take me awhile to go through these and organize them, but I’m so excited how everything turned out! Pi Beta Phi is promoting literacy via Rent the ToyChest’s support and promoting of PLAY.
It is within the context of play that young children can learn the concepts and develop the essential literacy skills that they’ll build on later.
Yours in Play!
Teacher Karen
Leave a Reply