MN Kindergarten Conference 2015

Over the weekend I had the chance to attend the Minnesota Kindergarten Association conference. Our guest speakers were Nancy Carlson, Shari Sloane, and Pete Harry from Harry Kindergarten! I had such a great time learning from them. 

The conference was back up in Moorhead where I went to college! J It was fun to be back on my stomping grounds.

I loved to hear the creative process that these teacher/musician/authors went through and it inspires me to put more of a musical and creative spin on my classroom management and teaching style!

Here I am with Pete Harry aka Harry Kindergarten music.

He had so much to say about using music during transition, during student responses, and pretty much during everything! He has a very loving and welcoming classroom environment. He is a pro at using technology and music. (obviously with his videos – but he does so much to involve the students!) He has a lot of FREE music on his youtube page and also has exclusives for previews on songs to purchase! Here is one of my favorite for movement, but check out more:

It will be fun to have some more musical tricks in my back pocket. 

SIDE NOTE --

I am a very musically expressive teacher too – I grew up in a MUSIC family. I come from a line of choir directors. My dad is the HS choir director in Alexandria, MN. I spent my undergrad at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN where I sang in the choir too. I even traveled to S. Korea with the choir! 

We also heard Nancy Carlson speak about her art career and the transition into writing children’s books with animal characters to teach necessary emotional themes for children. She even did a directed drawing with us! SO FUN.

 Ahh! I would love to write children’s books! Maybe a future for me? Who knows! J