Ms. Amy's Blog @Child Central Station

The deadline for proposals for the 2012 UP Early Childhood Conference to be held April 13-14, 2012, at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, Michigan is approaching! You have until December 16, 2011 to submit your proposal!   Hop on over the to conference website for more information! I'm going to make this really easy for you, and embed the form for you right here! ( But you can also find it on the organization's page!)    If you are having trouble viewing the form on this page, please visit the form link .  I hope to see you at this year's conference! <p><p>Loading...</p></p>

Are you saving the dates? 2012 UP Early Childhood Conference "Naturally Nurturing" April 13-14, 2012 Northern Michigan University Marquette, Michigan featuring: Rusty Keeler and Jeff A Johnson 2013 UP Early Childhood Conference "TBD" April 19-20, 2013 Bay College Escanaba, Michigan featuring Lisa Murphy and Georgean & James Coffey Visit www.upecc.org for more information! They are currently seeking applications for the 2012 conference for workshop presenters and vendors/exhibitors!

Mary Jo Huff was one of the keynote speakers at the UPECC this past weekend in Escanaba.  If you are ever looking for a high-energy, inspiring, storytelling trainer to see..... Look for Mary Jo!   In due time, I will continue to add tidbits to this blog from some of the great conferences and trainings I have been attending. This short video clip above is from the Family Night Mary Jo offered at our conference. The clip below is from one of the workshop sessions. Mary Jo gave us a lot of great ideas for storytelling and using props that folks are going back and putting to use immediately! I know that we have been playing with some peepers that we purchased from Mary Jo at the conference.  The children are having a great time creating stories and acting them out with their new "peeper" friends! It sounds like we will be spending some time making accessories and developing our plays! Stay tuned!

Last Saturday, I had the wonderful opportunity to present at the MiAEYC Conference in Grand Rapids . I will also be presenting at the UPECC Conference this Friday in Escanaba, Michigan. I had hoped to take some time to create a mini movie of my presentation, but life has been busy and with warmer spring like weather..... I've seriously cut down on my computer time (other than to keep up with last minute details for the Upper Peninsula Early Childhood Conference).  So, here is a link to a pdf version of the powerpoint I used in Grand Rapids as a start. You will notice that all of the great photos and ideas I shared are also featured on the Outdoor Inspiration Page . Please take some time to link up any new ideas or your versions of similar ideas. I love to see how other folks tweak the inspiration to create their own versions! (I'm including the link to this post as well! Feel free to grab the code if you would like to have it appear on your blog as well.) Enjoy! Take ...

Life has been busy. It always is this time of year. I celebrated another year of life, spent a weekend with an amazing group of storytellers at Adventures in Storytelling, and now, I'm spending a lot of time getting ready for the UP Early Childhood Conference as late registrations are trickling in...... Tomorrow, I'm off to Grand Rapids for the MiAEYC conference. I will be presenting "Take It Outside! Creating an Outdoor Classroom" on Saturday morning.  We've been soaking up the sun whenever it decides to come out, I love that the "Mud Pie Kitchen" has been uncovered enough to become a mud and snow kitchen. I am however looking forward to the disappearance of the last bits of snow in the yard! I appologize for my absence in advance as I am quite certain that my blogging time will be quite limited this week. If you are missing the extra reading and looking for some other great options, stop on over at Let the Children Play   for a couple ...

April 15-16, 2011 Bay de Noc Community College Escanaba, Michigan In my "spare" time I volunteer as a board member and co-chair for the Upper Peninsula Early Childhood Conference Committee. This conference is held in the spring and is typically a yearly event. There is a lot of excitement brewing for this year's event! We are fortunate to have an amazing line up of keynote and workshop speakers ! Dr. George Forman will present Friday morning's keynote on: "Getting Persuasive About Play." He will also extend his keynote information into workshop sessions on both Friday and Saturday, engaging participants in "Making Meaning of Ordinary Moments." Mary Jo Huff will be our featured keynote on Saturday presenting: "Bloom, Bloom, Bloom, Right Where You Are!" She will also present a couple of workshops: "Storytelling- The School and Family Connection" and "Make-It, Take-It, Use It Immediately With the Children." Friday night ...

This past spring after the Upper Peninsula Early Childhood Conference , I was given a wonderful book: Do-It-Yourself Early Learning by Jeff and Tasha Johnson . This book is fantastic! There are plans and suggestions for a variety of toys and activities that you can make yourself with very inexpensive materials. One of my favorite suggestion is to make a pvc pipe construction set. The book outlines various sizes of pipe to cut and a number of different types of connectors. Today, we used some of our set to make "A Bike Wash" (A similar suggestion for a car wash is outlined in the book. However, we did not opt to buy a different size pvc pipe for our version.) The children had a fantastic time cooling off and tinkering with the pipes. "What happens when you put your finger over the hole?" I'm fairly certain that the bikes only went through the wash once or twice.... The weather has been quite warm, and it was just as much fun to play with the "bik...

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