Day 1 of the 2014 NAEYC Conference

Lucky me- the NAEYC is holding their annual conference in Dallas this week, and I get to go to it!  It was about a 40 minute drive for me, but I sat next to teachers from as far away as Costa Rica!

This morning,  I attended a wonderful presentation on Conscious Discipline called Discipline for the Most Demanding: From Chaos to Calm by Dr. Becky Bailey & Kim Jackson.  They were a lot of fun to listen to and they really GET the real issues we all deal with.  Yes, we did get up and do all the motions. There are many, many, many free resources at: ConciousDiscipline.com.  

In the afternoon, I attended Kindergarten and the Common Core It's as easy as ABC! presented by Kathy Brown and Sarah Martino.  Wow- they are two inspiring teachers!  Sarah student taught in Kathy's classroom many years ago and they really made a connection.  They have a TeachersPayTeachers Store called Can You Read It? Yes We Can!

I collected lots of ideas from them.  My students will love their  songs for Character, Setting, Plot, and Reading for Information.  I am also looking forward to using their idea of having each student in the class write a letter to another classmate (and the classmate reads it) to break up the routine of writing in journals every day.  They gave away many door prizes.  I won their Patriotic Math and Literacy Bundle.  I will be busy printing before Veteran's Day!  

If you want to see Kathy and Sarah yourself, here are links to two free webinars:

http://vimeo.com/84910703

http://vimeo.com/99287926 

So....

Yes, it was worth the hours of planning it took to get ready for a sub for THREE DAYS!  I can't wait to go back tomorrow morning for more great classroom inspiration.  

Eilis