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Learning Story Justification:

          Learning stories are stories that engage listeners in an adventure of childhood enlivened with our own humanity and heart. The stories are meant for parents to see what their children spend their day working on. Before the stories are sent home to parents, I sit down with the children and read the story that was written for them to them. As I read Amanda's story to her, she smiled the whole time. She asked me, "Do you have more pictures of me working on my house?" When I told her that I did, she asked me to see them. She also told me that while she was digging for shapes, she enjoyed me helping her. She said, "It um, made it easy when you helped me. Thank you, Miss Tiffany." 

          When the learning stories are sent home with the families,  I attach a letter asking for the parents to read the story with and without their children, prompt conversation about the task by asking the child questions, and write feedback about the story on the last page. I then ask the families to return the stories to me when they have finished reading them to the children. While none of the stories I sent home were returned to me, the parents did tell me how much they enjoyed reading about their children and how much their children enjoyed hearing  story written about themselves. 

          Through summer enrichment, I have found that learning stories serve another purpose that was not stated to me to begin with -- they promote teacher involvement within the children's free play during center time. I found myself more often than not engaging with the children during center time to not only gather information about a learning story, but to learn about the children. I found myself multiple times engaging with children, even when I didn't need information for a story. I sat down, documented, and engaged with the children's play to extend their knowledge (as well as my own) on the topic at hand. 

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