Written Down at the NAEYC Annual Conference

"Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire"      -   W.B. Yeats

Documentation is an act of love.

What does it mean to enter into a relationship with a child?

How can we promote collaboration between adults and all children - not just parents and their own child - in early childhood settings?

Unit blocks are broken down into logical, mathematical segments, not unlike musical notation.

When you don't say "no" as much, "no" carries more meaning. (stay positive)

"The culture of babies"

Simplify, Slow Down, and Be Present.

Nature unfolds a world of imagination.

We need to remember that literacy expectations are culturally based.

The act of learning to read and write is only part of the literacy puzzle.

Story acting is practicing empathy in a way that is rarely available in planned classroom activities - it allows for practice of something that is typically spontaneous.

The mind's eye is a SUPERPOWER!

Have you written something down lately that is sparking some ideas, plans, or prompts?

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Its almost ready...just a few tweaks left!  

In One Week

One week from today, I'll be in Atlanta at the NAEYC conference, getting ready to share all about educational blogging for teachers.  I hope you'll join me!

Standards and Engaged Learning

The world of Early Childhood Education is evolving, but there are still some less-than-ideal situations that we have to face. A new one for me is standards.

But I was poking around the the NAEYC Beyond The Journal website the other day and was thrilled to find not only an article, but also a 10 day discussion forum with the article's author, Judy Harris Helm, on the topic of linking standards and engaged learning.

I love my job so far, and I'd like to be working theer for a while. That means I can either teach standards to the students through lessons and ignore the need to give them situations in which to apply them, or I can embed the standards into child based projects, making the project a priority. I choose the latter.

The discussion starts today, and I know I'll be following it closely for the next 10 as it goes on.

Bon Week-end!