Our daughter grew up watching âThe Mickey Mouse Clubâ, âUnder the Umbrella Treeâ, âWild and Crazy Kidsâ, and of course, âBarneyâ, the purple dinosaur. These shows were innovative, fast-paced, brightly colored spectacles that encouraged children to think through play, to see the joy around them, to ask questions and to create. Our Lora soaked it all in, but these shows didnât initiate anything in her. They just added to what her little girl mind was busy doing â think play, educating herself, doing more than one thing at a time.
Lora was the one who baked a cake to display the geography of Virginia. In 5th grade, she cross-stitched the segments of the brain. In 3rd grade, she convinced her teacher to let her start a class newspaper where she would assign different âreportersâ weekly assignments to write about. Then there was that 4th grade research paper on fire because she had to know how it worked. And when she went to Wil