Professional development workshops

This weekend I had the honor of traveling to the neighboring city of Villavicencio to teach professional development workshops to around 15 preschool teachers from Christian schools. “Preschool” is considered pre-jardin (4 years old or preschool), jardin (5 years old or kindergarten) and transicion (6 years old or first grade.)

I traveled with my teacher aide and the kinder teacher. We had a great time sharing ideas, discussing the importance of discipline and routines as well as making materials to take back to the classroom.

Our first session was on using common materials as learning tools. We gave the participants eggs cartons, paperclips and brads to make spinners and straws. Here are some of their creative ideas!

A boat with numbers to put counters into.

Matching shapes

Straws to make numbers for simple equations.

A crocodile with a mouth for more than and less than… or inside and outside.

Making pictures with different sized straws.

Part of this adventure was teaching a workshop for around 120 parents where we focused on working with the heart of the student, not just their behavior. We used the book “Shepherding a Child’s Heart” as the basis of our talk. During the parent workshop we shared strategies for understanding small children and helping them make good choices. We emphasized the consistency and discipline is very important.

Parent workshop- I’m speaking and my aide is translating (She’s a rock star!)

Saturday morning we went to look around at a Christian school in the area. It was fun to see the classrooms and environments the teachers in our workshops work in.

The Kinder room at one school.

 

The first grade room.

We ate some delicious food! Talk about a plate of meat!

Here’s the school that hosted our classes.

The second session we spent time discussion classroom routines and gave tips to help their days go smoother. We also taught a few songs in English. The last activity was making big books to use in the classroom.  They made books about creation, animals, the alphabet, time, friendship and several other creative ideas.

The kinder teacher and I kicking back.

My teacher aide and I loving some sandwich!

Over all this was a great experience. I was able to grow in my Spanish, as well as gained many ideas from other teachers for activities in the classroom. I was reminded how blessed I am to work in a Christian school where our values are the same. I hope the teachers involved were blessed through this time of learning and sharing!