Certification Conference

On Saturday I spent most of my day at Penn State - York Campus's Conference for Early Childhood Educators. Each year at Sunbeam we are required as a Keystone star to complete at least six hours of training. I chose to complete mine all in one day to try and get it out of the way early. I was extremely excited to go there was free food, who doesn't love free food? My first course was about active learning. The instructor presented so many ideas that could be incorporated in many different age groups. His demonstrations were phenomenal. I also took a Kindergarten Readiness course. Even though I work with two year olds I was still curious about some things from previously working with preschoolers. I learned that in the West York Area School District, the principal does not expect incoming students to know how to spell their name, count to 20, as much as she expects them to have a desire to learn. It was interesting to hear that coming from a principle. Note to self: Make sure to encourage excitement for Kindergarten. In this course I also came up with some great ideas of my own to incorporate in the center. Parent involvement was one of the most important things that was brought up to the class, I think this topic is so crucial for classrooms because without communication what would be the point? Note to self: Gather ideas for a section of the room for volunteer opportunities. Last but definitely not least, I took a course on time management. I thought this course would be most useful for me because our classroom is a little crazy. I'm sure you can understand why, there are eleven two year olds running around all day. I found this course to be uplifting for personal reasons but I didn't feel it quite connected to the classroom environment as much as I would have preferred. I was a bit disappointed about that. Although I have some great time tips that I would like to share with everyone.
1.) Group and consolidate activities
2.) Get a good start
3.) Develop routines
4.) Avoid congestion
5.) Take advantage of your mood
6.) Coordinate personal care needs far in advance
7.) Be a "wait watcher"
8.) Think about being early
9.) Double your pleasure
10.) Call ahead
11.) Those bits and pieces add up
12.) Become a speed reader
13.) Eliminate when possible
Something else that could be useful for many of you is creating time management quadrants. Simply categorize your events or responsibilities into four different quadrants. As you finish one activity rearrange your categories to fit your needs at the moment.
1.) Urgent and important
2.) Not urgent, critically important
3.) Urgent, not important
4.) Not urgent, not important
Hope this helps everyone else as much as it's helped me! :-)