Teacher Spotlight: Ms. Brooke - Lake Mills Campus
Here at LWP we like to ensure our teachers know just how much they are appreciated on a daily basis. Day after day they work in their classrooms as well as together as colleagues to ensure they are educating your children, helping them obtain the skills they need to succeed in the future, and most importantly, have fun while they are at our school! However, after some discussions with current families, we have noticed that our families/customers may not get enough of a look into the daily lives of our teachers, and how they are always working to better themselves, their classrooms, and most importantly, making sure that LWP continues to be a place where your children can come to grow and learn on a daily basis. With that being said, we wanted to take a step back, and take some time to highlight each of our teachers once a month, so you as the families we serve can see a little bit further into what makes all of us tick on a daily basis, as well as some fun facts you may have not known about your child’s teacher!
For our first spotlight, we are starting with Ms. Brooke Vinje (or Ms. Brookie, as the children call her!). Ms. Brooke is the Lead Teacher in our Pine classroom, and brings almost 20 years worth of experience in early childhood education! She has obtained all of her necessary early childhood education credentials to be a lead teacher in the State of Wisconsin, as well as is currently working on her Administrator Credential to be able to eventually become a director of some sort! Ms. Brooke is originally from Deerfield, Wisconsin, but currently resides in Johnson Creek, Wisconsin. She has a 14 year old son who she loves to spend time with, as well as a cat named Simba!
To start, we sat down with Ms. Brooke and asked her some questions regarding LWP, her teaching style, and much more! When asked what her favorite part about working at LWP is, Ms. Brooke replied saying, “I love that LWP is so family oriented and everyone treats each other like family and we are all so close”. In a follow up to that question, we asked what makes her days great at LWP, to which she said, “Just simply being around the staff and children day after day”. We couldn’t agree more with Ms. Brooke! At LWP, we do our best to foster and nurture an atmosphere that makes everyone feel at home when they walk through our doors. And because of that, it is extremely fun and gratifying to be around such a hard working group of staff, and the extremely happy and smiling children we all serve! In addition to this, Ms. Brooke let us know what some of her favorite activities to do in the classroom are. She stated that anything even remotely messy is right up her alley! She loves to paint with her students, pull out the shaving cream for a fun sensory activity, the list could go on and on! We speak everyone when we say that art and self expression are big hallmarks to LWP’s philosophy, and Ms. Brooke does a fantastic job at ensuring all her students are given the opportunity to jump out of their shells and explore their interests on a daily basis in this way!
Next, we wanted to ask Ms. Brooke a little bit about what she might spend her time doing when she isn’t rocking it in the classroom! Ms. Brooke let us know that in summer, her and her family LOVE to go camping. However, in the winter time, her passion is snowmobiling as much as she possibly can. We’re keeping our fingers crossed for her for some better snowfall this winter so she can get out and ride on the weekend some more! In addition to all of this, when Ms. Brooke isn’t working at LWP, she works part-time at The Croc Store in Johnson Creek Outlet Mall! So, if you're out and about and doing some shopping, think about stopping in and saying hi sometime, she loves visitors! Moving forward, we asked Ms. Brooke who/what inspires her, and why! We asked this because at LWP, we operate under the notion that in the Reggio based approach, the students' teacher, their families, and their classrooms/the world around them all play a role in being an educator. Because of this, the inspirations our teachers pick up around their own personal life, undoubtedly play a factor in the education of the children we serve on a daily basis. Ms. Brooke let us know that her Mom and her Grandma are her biggest inspirations. She stated that her mother is the one to pushed her to enter into a career in the Early Childhood Education world initially. In addition, her grandmother inspires her because she was a single mother and was able to help raise her mother into the role model she needed in her life, and all in all, both her mother and grandmother showed her what it takes to be a very strong woman! These sentiments resonate with us at LWP in a big way. Everyone comes from a different walk of life, but it’s these experiences that are able to bring us all together, where we can find common ground in places that are safe to learn and grow, such as our classroom. Ms. Brooke continually explores these different life themes in her classroom and continually helps teach her students to care for each other, lift each other up when one is sad, and always to treat everyone with kindness like she was taught from her mother and grandmother.
Ms. Brooke's favorite teaching quote is:
"The best teachers are those who show you where to look but don't tell you what to see." - Alexandra K Trenfor
To finish up our time speaking so candidly with Ms. Brooke, we wanted to ask some fun questions such as “This or That?”, as well as “What’s your favorite _____?”. Please see her responses below!
Favorites:
Color - Orange or Yellow
Movie or TV Show - Big Brother
Book - The Twilight Series
Food - Big, Juicy, STEAK! (We concur!)
Season - Winter because of snowmobiling, or Fall because of Halloween!
We hope you enjoyed reading on Ms. Brooke, you and your family were able to gain some useful knowledge on Ms. Brooke and the wealth of experience and knowledge she brings to our center! Ms. Brooke is an extremely valuable asset to our team, and we are continually grateful for the effort and hard work ethic she brings to LWP each and every day she walks through the front door! Thank you for taking the time to sit down with us Ms. Brooke, and thank you to our LWP families for also continuing to support our teachers and center in every way you are able!
At Little Woodland Preschool we strive to give the best possible care to children of every age. Our dedicated staff aid each child in developing appropriately while still exploring the world around them through the lens of a child.