OUR ALUMNI
Reaching Out During the COVID-19 lockdown, staying in touch with loved ones was more important than ever. For these past and present Ivanhoe Girls, adopting new technology helped them reach out to friends and family and build a whole new community as well.
Keeping Up With The Kids Past student, Lyn Farrington (Class of 1975), was determined to keep in touch with her grandchildren, and as a former kindergarten teacher, it was only natural that she wanted to keep reading them stories.
promote just by putting out these videos”.
“The hardest thing in lockdown is not seeing the grandkids,” she says. Prior to the pandemic, Lyn would mind her granddaughter once a week. “It was a full day and we’d do so many fun things.”
Lyn was filming her stories every few days when her daughter, who is living with them during lockdown, suggested she post them to YouTube, and helped her set it up. “I wouldn’t have thought of that in a million years,” says Lyn.
Has it helped her to maintain that allimportant connection to her grandchildren? “My granddaughter often goes to bed and watches Nanna on the iPad. It’s just like I’m reading her a story. She knows I’m still in her life, she knows I still love her.”
“But I always loved reading books when I was a kinder teacher, it was my favorite part of the day. So that was how it started.”
Her social media success has left her busier than ever, despite lockdown. “I’m so busy reading stories and taping them,” she says. “I’m participating in the world, I’m keeping up with teaching, I haven’t stopped,” she says. “I’ve met so many interesting people through Instagram and it just warms your heart. It’s quite an amazing community.”
Lyn was anxious about losing contact with her grandchildren, aged four and one. “With the youngest one, we feel as if we’ve missed so much of his first year. They change so much developmentally,” she says. “There are a lot of grandparents missing out on their grandchildren’s milestones.” Despite the wonders of technology, facetime calls didn’t cut it. “Not for that age group,” says Lyn. “It’s very hard to have a good conversation with her on the phone.” So Lyn decided to start videoing herself reading a story to her grandchildren. “I thought, well at least they’ll see me, they’ll be able to watch me on the iPad,” she says. “When I read to them I addressed the stories to them and talked to them, so it really was just so they knew I was thinking about them and loved them.”
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Today, “Storytime with SheNANNAgans” has over 200 subscribers on YouTube and 1200 followers on Instagram, and she is reading picture book stories to children around the world. “I’ve always been passionate about promoting early literacy and I value the importance of reading for children. To have them being read to is so important,” she says. “I thought, wow, this is something I can
“I read it exactly how I would to a class or my grandchildren,” she says. “I probably look just like an old chook, but that’s just me.”
