Tag: teaching

Paddy starts school with a cold potato in his pocket. A story for school starters of 5 years old

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Paddy starts school with a cold potato in his pocket

Well hello, you can call me Paddy. I hear you are starting school soon. That will be grand. Things were different in my day. We had to walk to school, or if we were very lucky my dad would put us on the horse. Two kids up on the saddle and two walking, we would take it in turns to ride. I expect you will get taken to school by your mammy, or you may catch a school bus.

On my first day my mam gave me a cold potato for my pocket. That was to be my dinner, but I didn’t really understand that. When it came to dinner time I had nothing to eat as I ate my potato at playtime. Oh dear! I was hungry. I sat on the floor and hid my face. A kind lady spoke to me.

‘Where is your tatty? she asked. ‘Did you eat it before?’

I nodded my head.

‘Awww, never mind. Here I’ve got one for you. You are not the only one you know.’

She sat me down at a table with several other new wee ones. She passed round a bowl with warm potatoes in it. Soon we were all smiling again.

‘ I’ll tell your mammy and your teacher,’ said the kind lady, ‘then you will know when to eat your dinner.’

I had a great day, I was happy at school. They had lots of crayons and games and books to look at. We played games in the playground and I soon got to know the names of the other children in my class.

When I got home I told my mam about the potato. She smiled and said how kind the lady was to give us all another one. She told me that next time I could just bite off the end of my tatty if I was hungry at playtime and I must wait until dinner time to eat the rest of it. She said the nice lady would not have potatoes to give away every day and I had to learn to wait for dinner time to eat mine.

Questions:

Who was the story about?

What was Paddy given for dinner by his mam?

Why did Paddy hide his face at dinner time?

Was he the only one with no dinner?

What did the kind lady give to the children who didn’t have a tatty for their dinner?

What did Paddy need to remember about his potato the next day?

What nice things did Paddy do on his first day at school?

Introducing Guptananda

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Welcome. I’m Teresa. I plan to put my stories on this blog. I hope you enjoy reading them. Although I started off writing Yogas Stories,  I write about other subjects too, and you will find different stories under the different categories in my blog. I’d love to hear any thoughts you may have. Click on the word ‘comment’ below each post to get in touch or share your thoughts. For the time being here is a short introduction to my background.

My General Background
I live in the UK with my husband where I worked as a special needs teacher in a college of Further Education (now retired). I’m also a mother of two grown sons, a grandmother, a qualified yoga teacher, psychotherapist and counsellor. I also embrace other forms of healing including energy healing, Bach Remedies, essential oils, and crystals. In my spare time I love to garden.

The Stories
In 1995 an amazing thing happened. A spirit guide, Guptananda, came to me during a meditation when I was asking for help to teach my yoga classes. I had met him once before in a meditation circle when I asked for help in understanding New Age writings. I was taken up into a blue sky and across to the continent of India. I travelled across the snowcapped Himalayan Mountains, to a cave, inside was a guru. He told me that I didn’t need to read New Age material, but told me instead to read the Vedas, Upanishads and the Bhagvad Gita, and that I would find all the answers I needed there. I had read them once before as part of my training to become a yoga teacher. In response to my request for help  He said “There’s no point in teaching people spiritual practices unless they are obeying the ‘laws of life’.” I couldn’t remember what they were myself and he sternly told me off! Then he told me not to worry, and said that he would help me. He gave me a story on greed, then another on chastity. Over weeks and months he gave me a set of  stories all about his own life. He told me he lived 400 years ago. The first yoga principles are the yamas and niyamas, the laws of life, similar to the 10 commandments. I’ve used these stories to help me to teach my students. The stories given via Guptananda offer the teachings of these principles in a very readable and acceptable format, suitable for both adults and children.


As time went on people began asking me to write stories. I discovered that other guides would also visit me to offer stories on other themes, for example therapeutic stories for my counselling clients and stories for Education In Human Values in schools and colleges I believe that these stories are wonderfully touching and relevant to today’s life. They have been a gift to me and I want to share them with other people. They are of particular relevance to those on the path of studying or teaching yoga, but are useful to people in all walks of life.