Ms. Amy's Blog @Child Central Station

I'm at the MiAEYC Conference in Grand Rapids.  I always have such a fantastic time learning and growing when I have the opportunity to sit in on and present professional development sessions. This year, I am presenting on the Science of Art and BIG pictures! I'll be talking about things like pendulum painting.... And fizzing sidewalk paint.... Just to name a few!  I plan to share a few video clips from some of our experiences: BAGGIE BOMBS: MELTED CRAYON ART: Unfortunately, with only 75 minutes, I don't have as much time as I would like to engage everyone in all of these fantastic ideas, but we will be trying a couple! Hope to see you there!

I'm at the MiAEYC Conference in Grand Rapids, and this morning I have the wonderful opportunity to listen to a keynote presentation on outdoor classrooms... quite fitting and coincidental, as my post over at PreKandKSharing today is ALL about our outdoor classroom! Hop on over and check it out! AND there is a linky at the end for you to link all of your great outdoor activities and outdoor classroom areas!!!! Creating an Outdoor Classroom at PreKandK Sharing! Oh, and if you happen to be at MiAEYC- I'll be presenting at noon tomorrow in the Atrium Room, We will have some fun messy play with the Science of Art and BIG Pictures!  Hope to see you there!

Around here, we "run" with an emergent curriculum.  Sometimes, I get a lot of questions in regards to, well... what about the infants and toddlers? Well, some of our activities have to be adapted when  it comes to working with younger children,  but for the most part working with our infants and toddlers  is not much different from working with our preschool aged children. We still follow the children's lead. We spend a lot of time setting up a rich environment  that gives each child the opportunity to learn and grow through exploration. However, with infants and toddlers, they do not directly tell you... you have to observe  and make some assumptions about their actions and play...... Our little guys are simply  fascinated by sound.  They have been doing their best to make music wherever they go. This little guy loves the texture of our bench.  He spends quite a bit of time exploring the sounds made ...

The warm temperatures have melted the snow! It seems so odd to be raking instead of shoveling during the middle of March! Our outdoor time has increased significantly and today- we spent a lot of time making music! After the winter snow, we have a few things to touch up....  The top of our thunder drum needs a little sanding and a fresh coat of paint, and our tire drum needs a new drum head.... And... we have all kinds of plans for some new additions too... stay tuned! If you are looking for more details in regard to our outdoor music area,  you might want to check out these posts: Making Music Xylophones and Outdoor Music Update to our Outdoor Music Area Thunder Drum and a Touch of Color IF you would like to hear some of the wonderful music we made today-  Visit our Facebook page! I posted a couple of videos there. I shared this post here:   I'd love it if you'd link it up to my outdoor inspiration- mus...

Have you seen the Winter edition of Connections for a Great Start? The whole issue is based upon supporting children's creativity and imagination, and we shared some of our fun with loose parts. You can find the article we wrote on pages 14-15 here.    Loose parts are great indoors and out... Putting them together is fantastic for fort building! Imagination soars when cardboard boxes are instantly transformed! A row of chairs could be a train, a bus or a plane..... Where are we travelling today? Teamwork happens when parts are too big to move by yourself! Large loose blocks can be built into a stage, and tubes become microphones or instruments for your band! Industrial sized tubes become great listening ears and muscles! Tires are great for pretty much everything! Obstacle courses start to pop up all over the place! How have you been using loose parts?

I've been busy, and other aspects of life have taken over for the time being. Thus, I've been away from the blog. I'm still busy- posting here and there on our Facebook page. I'll be back eventually. Until then.... I thought I would schedule a few posts from the archives to repost!  This one orginally posted last August. Enjoy! Last night, I finally sat down and tried to make it through my google reader. (After an hour or so of reading and still having over 1000 posts, I cleared it.... So, if I missed something great that you wrote about please bring it to my attention!) One of the posts that I did manage to read before clearing the slate was a selection from Tom Sensori . If you have a sand and water table and have not been to Tom's blog ... you need to stop reading this post and go over there RIGHT NOW! (Just don't forget to come back!) T om has amazing ideas for really making the most of your table and providing engaging learning activities for...