At Shippensubrug University I am a member of the club SU CAAEYC. SU CAAEYC is a branch of CAAEYC, which stands for Capital Area Association for the Education of Young Children. CAAEYC is then a chapter of NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children). Each year CAAEYC holds a local conference that serves as a professional development for educators.
CAAEYC Mission Statement
The purpose of the Capital Area Association for the Education of Young Children (CAAEYC) is to enhance the lives of children by providing support for adults working with or on behalf of young children.
more can be found at www.caaeyc.org
Group Photo of us SU CAAYEC members at the conference
The conference was held at Messiah College. Registration started around 8:00 and after you registered you were able to go enjoy a complimentary breakfast in the cafeteria. At 9:00 the first session began. My schedule looked something like this:
8:00-9:00 Registration/ Breakfast
9:00-11:00 First Session:
STEAM: This was my favorite session from the conference. I already knew about STEAM and what it meant (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math), but this session gave me ideas to incorporate into my future classroom. Activities that we did included:
Math- Addition Towers:
Here you would have students use blocks to build two towers (size depending on age group). After building the towers they would count the number of blocks in each and then create an addition sentence using those numbers. So for example if the first tower had 4 blocks and the second had 5 their addition sentence would look like 4+5= or 5+4=. They would then combined the two towers to make one. After they had the one tower created they would count the number of blocks in that tower. This would show them that the 4 blocks from their first tower plus the 5 blocks from the second would equal 9.
Science- Magnetic Painting:
We took paint and put it onto a cookie sheet, then put something metal on top of the paint. When we put a magnet under the cookie sheet, right underneath the metal object we were able to move it all around causing it to swirl the paint around the cookie sheet.
Engineering- Gum Drop Structures:
We had to build a structure given 10 gumdrops and 20 toothpicks that would be strong enough to support a large textbook.
Here was my gumdrop structure:
Art- How do you turn a drawing of a show into a fish?
After tracing a shoe onto paper you could use crayons, colored pencil or paint to make it look like a fish. A book that I thought was super cute that they paired with this activity was called, Swim Swim by Lerch.
Technology- Web Cam Zoo Keeping
We watched a panda live at one of the local zoos from a webcam. The idea of this would be to check to see what the panda was doing throughout different times of the day and to record the pandas behavior on a chart. This could be done with any animal that was available on the webcam.
After we completed these small activities were had to do a group challenge. Each group had to pick 3 supplies to use and try to create the highest structure. My group chose paper plates, styrofoam cups and wooden spoons. We didn't use the wooden spoons, however we did use the paper plates and styrofoam cups and won the challenge!!
11:00-1:30 Lunch/ Keynote Speaker:
The keynote speaker was Jason Kotecki. He's a writer from Wisconsin and let me just say he is hilarious!!! He had me in tears, he was so funny. He talked about how once we become adults we often suffer from adultitiss. He wants to help us adults realize that sometimes it's ok to be a kid again and to laugh while having a good time. You should defiantly check out his books. He has a new book coming out June 23, 2015!!
1:30-3:45 Second Session: PA One Book, Every Young Child-
My second session was suppose to be Reading Between the Lines, but unfortunately it was canceled. I ended up attending a session called 2015 PA One Book, Every Young Child. Each year the program chooses one book that they hope will reach every child in PA that year. This years chosen book was Number One Sam by Greg Pizzoli. For this session we talked about how this book could be used across all curriculum areas for different age groups. A kit is made to go along with each book to help get the readers be engaged and to become interactive with the book. These kits are only available through local libraries, but can be borrowed to become a great asset in the classroom. The kits often include games, manipulatives, big books, etc.
This was the second CAAEYC conference that I attended and each time I go I find it to be beneficial. While sometimes the sessions end up being on something I already have knowledge about, I still find myself learning more information to build onto what I already know.
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