Thank You, Mrs. Pritchard

I’ve always had an active imagination. I used to make up games and friends and stories to keep myself occupied as a little girl. But when I was in third grade, my teacher Mrs. Pritchard taught me that a good imagination and creativity could be used for so much more than playing (though playing is good, too).

Mrs. Pritchard gave everyone in my class a spiral notebook. As a regular class exercise, we would each bring our notebook up to Mrs. Pritchard, who would open it to a clean page and draw random squiggles and designs with her marker. Our assignment was to turn the squiggles into a picture and write a story about it.

I loved the exercise; it was my favorite part of class. I waited in anticipation as Mrs. Pritchard drew on my paper, wondering what the designs might be. As soon as I finished my picture and story, I would hurry up with my notebook to Mrs. Pritchard for another. She always admired my story and artwork first and then sent me back with another doodle. Sometimes she encouraged me to create sequels or additions to earlier doodles, challenging me to think even harder.

Mrs. Pritchard always encouraged us students to use our imaginations, to think, and to read. She read books to us out loud, we read books together out loud, and each week we were encouraged to choose and read a book on our own from Mrs. Pritchard’s bookshelf. My third grade teacher is one of the reasons I like reading and writing so much today. So thank you, Mrs. Pritchard, for helping me turn doodles into drawings and always encouraging me to use my imagination.