Early Childhood Conference focuses on kindergarten

BOWLING GREEN, O.—Early childhood educators will learn new ways to organize their environment, energize teaching and bring fun and creativity into the classroom at Bowling Green State University’s first Early Childhood Conference focused on kindergarten through third grade.

The conference is scheduled from 7:45 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. April 17 in Olscamp Hall on the BGSU campus. The Early Childhood program, now in its 34th year, is sponsored by the College of Education and Human Development and Continuing & Extended Education.

Suzi Boyett will give the keynote presentation, “Learning to Love Literacy: Organizing and Managing a Learning Environment That Is Just Right for Literacy Instruction,” to help educators prepare to create and manage a “learner-centered” classroom to help children develop their reading and writing skills. She will also discuss differentiated instruction and Response to Intervention (RTI), which is changing the face of instruction, and present two sessions during the conference.

A former classroom teacher of kindergarten through third grade, Boyett has also been a literacy coach and pre-kindergarten director. She works for the Lebanon Community School Corp. in Indiana as the district’s RTI coordinator. She is known for her practical, popular and teacher-tested strategies that fuel educators’ passion for teaching. She co-authored the 2003 Teacher’s Choice Award winner, “So Much Stuff, So Little Space.”

The conference offers 14 workshops on current trends for educators, including Early Sprouts—Kindergarten Programs at Toledo Botanical Gardens, New Ideas for Your Guided Reading Groups, Music with Glee for K through 3, and Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE)—It’s Elementary. Workshop presenters include curriculum consultants, environmental educators, professors, teachers and child-development specialists from organizations such as BGSU and the Children’s Resource Center.

The fee for the conference includes lunch and is $59 on or before March 19, and $69 after March 19. For more information or to register call 419-372-8181 or 1-877-650.8165.

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(Posted March 10, 2010 )