With children at home, we took a trip back to yesteryear and reached out to the daughter of Philippa Hamilton. Back in the 1980s Miss Philippa, as her students called her, was teaching at Brewton Elementary School.
Educating children was her passion and making learning fun was another passion. Ms. Hamilton understood that all children don't learn the same. She began developing games and puzzles for her second grade students that taught them multiple skills while having fun.
It started out as a hobby to help her students and later turned into a series of books called 'Learning Centers'.
The books were full of of those games, puzzles and more to stretch the students' minds to fill them out. They learned without knowing they were learning.
For years the Brewton Standard carried some of Miss Phillippa's puzzles and games in the weekly newspaper. They could be as simple as making sure the child used the correct colors to using those samples to learn math and language.
Ms. Hamilton died in 2009 but we took a chance to see if her daughter Peyton happened to have any copies of her work still available. She did.
On Page 12A of today's Tri-City Ledger there is a sample of what came out of her Learning Centers book. They are being published so children of today can enjoy the learning experience she created many years ago.
We also learned that the book is still available on Amazon. We encourage parents of students from kindergarten through about fourth grade to add this book to their home library.
As we all remain in a wait and see attitude with the COVID-19 pandemic, Miss Philippa can still bring a smile and learning to a child's face.
