Dilly Days with Beth and Joellyn: Authors of The InvestiGator Club™ for Robert-Leslie Publishing

My good friend and colleague, Maria Gonzalez, and I are delivering a workshop at the NAEYC Convention in Dallas this coming November. Please join us on Friday, November 7 from 10 to 11:30 AM at the Hyatt Regency in Cumberland C. During this session, we will explore a variety of approaches for the Spanish-speaking preschool setting. You will learn to tap into young learners’ curiosity through rich, meaningful Spanish literature, song, and storytelling experiences that develop children’s Spanish literacy skills, including oral language, vocabulary development, and comprehension skills. In addition, you’ll learn about a variety of Spanish literature, song, and storytelling opportunities that invite children to be active participants in content-area learning with a mindful approach. More NAEYC workshop and booth news to come! Stay tuned!

It is natural and appropriate to integrate curriculum in the preschool classroom. During a workshop at the One Goal Summer Conference in Tampa, Florida this month, teachers and directors from across the state became active participants in Investigation Stations where literature, music, and math activities were used to introduce science-based explorations. Why? Because building background, tapping prior knowledge, developing vocabulary, and sparking curiosity and imagination are all precursors to successful exploration in science!

My thanks to the participants who made this workshop so much fun and who contributed their classroom experiences and knowledge. It was a great learning experience!

Included below are the data collecting posters and handouts so that every teacher who wants to keep children curious with some great integrated science activities will have the materials they need.

Data Collecting Posters
Boats Afloat
Color-Mixing
Go! Go! Go!
Ice Melting Contest
Sensory Station
What Do Plants Need?

Event Photos

I will be leading three presentations at this week’s National Head Start Training Conference in Nashville. They are all tomorrow, the 22nd. Whew!

• 8:00 to 9:30 am: Using a Core Curriculum that Emphasizes the Needs of Children with Diverse Abilities
• 10:00 to 11:30 am: Building Relationships Between Schools and Families
• 12:00 to 1:30 pm: A Fully Intertwined Approach to Science and Literacy

I’ll also be in exhibition booth #331 for Robert-Leslie Publishing on the 23rd and 24th.

Beth is going to be attending and presenting at the Alabama Pre-K Conference in Montgomery this week. At dinner on Wednesday night, she’ll be speaking on “This is the Bestest Day of My Life: Bringing Joy to the Preschool Classroom through Social and Emotional Development.”

Then on Thursday afternoon (3:30–4:45), she is leading the breakout session: Investigating with Science Wrapped in Literacy. You can also meet her on the exhibit floor. Please stop by and say “hi!”

The National Association for the Education of Young Children is holding their 2007 Conference and Expo in Chicago this year. Come visit Beth and Joellyn at The InvestiGator Club/Robert-Leslie Publishing booth #226! They’ll be doing book signings on November 8 and 9 at 1:00. Come by anytime to pick up your free Learning Center Poster.

Just check out the fun Beth and I had with the InvestiGator Club team and the Parent/Child Inc. Head Start staff in San Antonio, Texas. Over two weeks in August we trained nearly 600 wonderful, enthusiastic new members of the InvestiGator Club. Welcome to the clubhouse!

Between putting the final touches on our Spanish Instructional Materials Kit and developing our new web-based lesson planner and assessment record, I’m busy planning my keynote speech for “Taking a Closer Look at Concepts,” a regional convention at Tulsa Tech in Tulsa, Oklahoma on September 22. My topic is “bringing joy to the preschool classroom through social and emotional development.” What fun! Please share your ideas for bringing joy into the preschool classroom. We’d love to hear from you.

For more information about professional development offerings in Oklahoma, you can go to The Center for Early Childhood Professional Development.

Joellyn managed to get in a quick phone call to me today. She, Beth, and the Robert-Leslie team are still going full steam at the National Head Start Conference. It sounds like the two workshops that she and Beth led were great successes, attracting 60-80 attendees per session. Wow! She also said that we needed to make their handouts available for download. If you came here looking for those, we’ll try to get them up soon. And thanks for choosing Beth & Jo’s workshops. We hope you enjoyed them.

March 24, 2007, Winter Park, FL: Nearly 100 educators gathered just outside Orlando for the first-ever Florida Prekindergarten Conference. Professional development for educators is nothing new, but this was the first time that the focus was solely on pre-K educators.

Educators learned about the latest trends in early childhood education as well as ways to improve the quality of their pre-K programs.

Sarah Sprinkel presented the keynote address, “Prekindergarten: What Difference Does It Make?” Sprinkel is a former director of Early Childhood Education, legislative liaison, national keynote speaker on brain development and early reading, and program adviser for The InvestiGator Club Prekindergarten Learning System.

Other presenters included respected early childhood educators:

Caren Abbott “Classroom Management”
Margrette Ackert “Developmental Play”
Christina Earley “Learning Differently”

Peggy Greene “Setting the Stage”
Sharon Jones “Social and Emotional Growth”
Karen Lindberg “The Importance of Oral Language Development”
Laurin MacLeish “Family of Fours”
Tiffany Taylor “amily Involvement”
Mary Williams “Art of Storytelling”
Beth Wise “Keeping Them Curious”

Hi, everyone. Since Jo and Beth can sometimes get really busy doing their experts-in-early-childhood-education thing, I (the behind-the-scenes admin) will occasionally pop in to let you know what they are up to.

On April 17th, they are leading two workshops at the 34th Annual Head Start Conference: “Building Relationships Between Schools and Families” and “Developing Social and Emotional Skills Through Language and Literacy.” You can also catch up with them at The InvestiGator Club booth #401. Please visit www.robert-leslieevents.com for more information. Stop by and say “hi!”