The weather
outside was frightful, but the teachers inside were delightful! Oh, my, oh, my! I didn’t meet any Mounties, but I sure
met some GREAT teachers last week at the Early Childhood Education Council in
Edmonton, CA. What an awesome
conference with Alberta’s BEST teachers!
Take a look at the balloon sculpture that they did of me! Blue eyes, pearls, and everything! (Please say I really don’t look like
that!)
Early childhood
teachers have a unique quality wherever I go. They are caring, giving, and hold hands and stick together –
just like we tell the children to do.
Here are some teachers with a photo of their colleague who was unable to
come due to breast cancer. I
“THINK PINK” and hope that we are able to beat that monster soon!
By the way, I am
embarrassed to admit it, but when I’m on the road I watch TLC “Say Yes to the
Dress.” Last week Lorie (the owner
of Atlanta’s bridal boutique) opened her heart to share her experience with
breast cancer. The courage, humor,
determination, and honesty that she modeled was inspiring. If you know anyone battling breast cancer,
I’d certainly recommend the show.
Lorie is a “Steel Magnolia” for sure!
The conference was
held at the world’s largest mall, and I could hardly wait to finish my sessions
so I could get out there. I walked
around with my bag of caramel popcorn like a little country kid in the big
city. WOW!
Here are a few
ideas the teachers shared.
Snowball Fight (Denyse Boyd)
Write one letter
(capital or lowercase) on paper.
Divide the class in half.
Children wad up the paper with letters to make snowballs. They throw their snowballs at each
other and then pick up a snowball and try to find their partner.
*Make similar
games with sets and numerals, math facts and numerals, etc.
Alphabet Soup
(Kelly Clarke)
Sit around the
“pot” (carpet) and pass out a letter to each child. The teacher starts the activity by saying, “Our soup needs
/k/.” The student holding the K
puts it in the pot and says, “Our soup needs ___.” The game continues as letters are added to the soup. Encourage the children to look at their
fellow “chefs” to see which letters/sounds are still needed in the soup. (Never leave a chef stranded. Even the best chef has a sous-chef!)
Stir the soup with
a spoon/pointer.
*Students pretend
to pick out a letter and eat it.
Then they “burp” the sound!
Car Wash Cheer (Kelly Clarke)
Roll up your
windows. (Pretend to roll up each
side.)
Polish your
car. (Brush hands on each
shoulder.)
A-B Parnters (Sharon Norman)
Divide the class
into A-B partners. Encourage them to discuss things with their partner when
the teacher is busy or to check in with their partner for assistance. Partners are trained to notice one
super-de-duper thing and one thing they can improve on. “I notice you did super-de-duper
coloring, but I also notice that you need to add your name.”
*Don’t you
love “super-de-duper”?
Marching
around the Alphabet (Sharon Norman)
Place letter
tiles (or any type of alphabet letters) on the carpet in a circle. Children march around the alphabet
until the whistle blows (or music stops).
Students bend down, pick up a letter, and tell their neighbor on each
side which letter they are holding.
*Hap Palmer made
the original song, but you could use any music.
Letterland (Sharon Norman)
This is an
awesome, multi-sensory way of teaching the alphabet. There are visual characters and actions for each letter. You can catch a glimpse of the “Letterland”
characters here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKy4NxhGpdg
Sliding
Blends (Joline Huisman)
Put a picture of
a slide on the board (Smart, white, or plain old chalkboard).
Write a word on
the slide and then use special voices to make the sound of climbing the slide
to read the sounds. Talk about how
the first time you go down a slide it’s a bit scary so hang on to the sides
really tight and go slowly down.
Slide down the slide saying
the sound of each letter. When you
get to the bottom, climb back up because it was so much fun. Now it’s not so scary and you can go
faster. Put your hands in the air
and slide down really fast blending the sounds together to read the word.
Voice Levels (Jolien Huisman)
Practice using
different voice levels. Voice 1 is no voice; voice 2 is whispers; voice 3
is quiet talking voice; voice 4 is regular talking voice; voice 5 is outside
voice. When dismissing children from circle time, hold up name cards or
puppet people (children’s photos attached to straws) using voice 1.
*You could also
use different voice levels for singing songs, saying rhymes, rereads of big
books, etc.
I found this photo of some different types of puppets
you could use for songs, transitions, stories, etc.