Sunday, July 15, 2012

I teach K--Day 1

WOW- day one was exciting to say the least! I was so overwhelmed with everyone I met, all the helpfulness of the fellow teachers, the impressiveness of how smoothly everything was ran by SDE and of course, meeting and talking with some big name folks in the teacher world! You might would even say, at times, I was a little awestruck!

We were all welcomed to the conference with a big grand opening meeting! The speakers were Jack Hartman, Sharron Krull and Donna Whyte. Before long we were all standing up, dancing, signing and moving like a penguin! It was so cute! You've never seen anything until you've seen 500 Kindergarten teachers up, waddling like a penguin and singing along to songs meant for 5 year-olds!

Later that morning I saw Catherine Kuhns. She was amazing!! She talked all about math centers, games and exploration in math! I took away so many great ideas to use in my own classroom!

This is her!!!

I loved how she used these solo cups for her big ten frame---they are cheap, easy to replace and the kids love them! She also shared this great poem with us! I just had to take a picture of it! It makes my heart smile!!

Later that day I got to see Jack Hartman! He's the creator of so many wonderful and energetic kid songs! He is such a kid at heart and has no problem acting goofy, dressing up in silly clothes and being crazy! He shared so many songs with us and of course, had us up dancing and singing along with him!

In this picture, he was singing us a song to a rap beat. And yes, that's a huge clock on his neck too! He said something that I thought was rather profound--- he said "always keep in mind that just because something isn't YOUR kind of music, doesn't mean that it isn't your STUDENTS type of music!" Play all types of music because it may the music your kids have grown up around their whole lives. This is a picture of us at the end of the session!

After lunch that day, I was able to see Cheryl Dick who taught literacy activities using your SMART board! While I totally forgot to take pictures she also had great ideas! I really loved how she taught us to take a video from YouTube, change the file it's saved as and then save it to your computer so you can play it at school! That might just change my life! :)

And last, but CERTAINLY not least, I got to see one of my idols--Kim Adsit! I really just don't know how she does it! (I guess 30 years of experience helps!) Her session was called Dollar Store Diva and it was all about how to bring novelty to your classroom- for cheap! She showed us how to use everyday items your can find at the dollar store and turn them into something cute and usable in your classroom! I LOVED THIS!!!!

These are cute plastic tennis rackets, spray painted pink and letters added to make pig faces on one side and the word piggy on the other sides. It went along with Old McDonald had a farm but with the word piggy in it! So stinking cute!

And of course, I had to have a picture with her! :)

She was just so sweet! (And we are from the same town!!!)

So, can you see why I was a little overwhelmed??? The classes started everyday at 8:00 and didn't end until 4:00---but it was all so worth it! I learned so much--and that was only day 1! Check back tomorrow and I'll be posting about day 2!