I'm excited to have a heavy schedule of conference presentations coming up.  I will be speaking at...

* San Francisco Child Care Providers Association's 11th Annual ECE Leadership Conference on Saturday, March 18th.  I will be presenting on 'early math talk' in early childhood classrooms, as well as facilitating a group discussion on early childhood policy and advocacy efforts.

* California Association for the Education of Young Children (CAEYC)'s 2017 Annual Conference and Expo on Friday, March 24th.  I will be presenting on 'early math talk' in early childhood classrooms, as well as assisting at the public policy booth in the expo hall.

* Head Start Region IX Assocation's Early Childhood STEM Institute on Tuesday, March 28th and Wednesday, March 29th.  I will be presenting three workshops: 'early math talk' in early childhood classrooms, design thinking for early childhood teachers, and early coding and computational thinking for ECE teachers and preschoolers.

* Oregon Association for the Education of Young Children (OregonAEYC)'s 2017 Spring Conference on Saturday, April 22nd.  I will be presenting on 'early math talk' in early childhood classrooms.

Looking forward to connecting with early childhood teachers and administrators who are excited to bring more early math and STEM into their classrooms.

I'm excited to have joined the Board of Directors for CRS, Community Resources for Science.  CRS is a non-profit that brings scientists into elementary school classrooms, as well as providing science professional development for elementary teachers.

This school year is CRS's 20th Anniversary, and we've having a gala to celebrate!  :-)

Join us on Thursday, March 16th in Berkeley for an evening of science experiments, food & drinks, and a program honoring of the 20 years of CRS. 

Find more info on the CRS website here...  https://www.crscience.org/events/It%27sElementary

And you can buy gala tickets online here... https://crs.ticketspice.com/20years

I had a great time at the Massachusetts Association for the Education of Young Children's Spring Conference yesterday.  Glad for the connections I made in the Transforming Program Quality through Intentional Leadership session.  And also glad to have been able to talk with teachers and directors about the importance of math talk in the early childhood classroom.  I've uploaded the handout below.

Also here are links to some of the other resources from the handouts...

Early Math Talk Resources:

Math Begins in Preschool: Talking the Language of Math
http://rec.ohiorc.org/orc_documents/orc/recv2/briefs/pdf/0004.pdf


Let’s Talk About Math Video Series
http://www.zerotothree.org/parenting-resources/early-math-video-series/


Support Math Readiness Through Math Talk
http://families.naeyc.org/learning-and-development/music-math-more/support-math-readiness-through-math-talk


Math Talk with Infants and Toddlers
http://families.naeyc.org/learning-and-development/music-math-more/math-talk-infants-and-toddlers


Supporting Early Math Learning for Infants and Toddlers
http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/tta-system/ehsnrc/docs/nycu-early-math-learning.pdf



General Early Math Resources:

Math at Play Videos
http://mathatplay.org/resources_v.html


Developing Early Math Games Based on Children's Literature
​http://www.naeyc.org/files/yc/file/200301/MathGames.pdf


Path to Math: Word Problems for Preschoolers
http://illinoisearlylearning.org/tipsheets/math-word.htm


Early Math: The Next Big Thing
http://www.highscope.org/file/EducationalPrograms/EarlyChildhood/EarlyMath.pdf


Algebra in the Early Years? Yes!
http://www.naeyc.org/files/yc/file/200301/Algebra.pdf


Logic & Reasoning in Head Start Learning
http://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/hslc/hs/sr/approach/cdelf/l_reason.html


Preschool Math Ideas
http://www.parentingscience.com/preschool-math-lessons.html

While speaking at the NAEYC Annual Conference this past week, I was interviewed by Ready Rosie about the importance of early math talk.  Ready Rosie creates videos for parents that show fun ways to interact with their young children - and I'm happy to see that Ready Rosie is incorporating early math interactions as well as early language and literacy interactions into their apps.    http://readyrosie.com/

Just led a packed workshop with over 120 people at the National Association for the Education of Young Children's 2015 Annual Conference in Florida.  When early childhood teachers can see themselves as problem solvers and mathematicians, they are able to help their students see themselves as problem solvers and mathematicians.

Here are the handouts as well as the slides that so many participants were trying to take quick phone photos of...

Just led a wonderful workshop at the California Association for the Education of Young Children's 2015 Annual Conference in Sacramento.  When early childhood teachers can see themselves as problem solvers and mathematicians, they are able to help their students see themselves as problem solvers and mathematicians.

Here are the handouts as well as some photos of the exercises we did...

I gave another workshop today for the Region IX Head Start on Creating Early Math Games that Work!  Was so much fun to play games with all of the teachers, go over the research, and then have everyone create their own games!  :-)

Here are the slides, as promised...

I presented today to 100+ preschool teachers at the Region IX Head Start Early Childhood STEM Institute.  Thanks to everyone who came to the workshop!  Hope you learned lots, and had some fun with math along the way!

Here are the slides, as promised.... 

And here's the Tiny Candy Store problem, as well as some of the other problem solving exercises that we did, and some that we didn't get a chance to explore...

And last, but not least, some of the work that all of you participants did as part of the workshop...

A friend asked for some recommendations for good math & science games and toys for a two and a four year old... Here's the short list I typed up - would love any other suggestions of what's worked well with your little ones!  :-)

.....

The best math & science toy especially for that young age is probably an interactive adult and going out into nature!  :-)  But I'm assuming you were thinking something more along the lines of things you can buy for said two and four year old....  (one note, a lot of these things might say for older children, but that's often because of small pieces - if they're going to be used with supervision and with interaction, then they're good for younger!)

On the math side...
* Tangrams are fun for building spatial sense - http://www.learningresources.com/product/139345.do
* Building patterns is a good skill, can certainly do this with household objects as well - http://www.learningresources.com/product/beads+and+pattern+card+set.do
* Basic 'move your piece along the number line' games are really good.  Chutes and Ladders works, although for younger kids, you often have to create your own game on paper with fewer numbers.  http://www.parentingscience.com/preschool-math-games.html  Somewhat surprisingly, I don't know of any commercial versions, despite strong research backing... http://www.psy.cmu.edu/~siegler/sieg-ram09.pdf 
* Puzzles are great for building spatial skills, and if the little girls happen to want pink, princess stuff, you can still sneak in puzzles!  http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2012/02/15/puzzle-play-helps-boost-learning-important-math-related-skills
* Legos or other building blocks also build spatial skills - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roberta-michnick-golinkoff/a-chip-off-the-old-block-_b_4640310.html

On the science side...
* Different kits to experiment with what happens in different situations are good.  http://www.timberdoodle.com/Primary_Science_Set_by_Learning_Resources_p/047-215.htm
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VE6U0O?ie=UTF8&tag=thearealist-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B000VE6U0O
http://www.amazon.com/POOF-Slinky-Scientific-Explorer-Blowing-11-Activities/dp/B000BURAP2/ref=cm_cr_dp_asin_lnk
* Bubbles are always fun!
* Lots of experiments can be done with household items - http://www.parentingscience.com/preschool-science-activities.html
* Tickets/passes to local science museums or zoos - I'd love to go to this Little Makers program!  http://nysci.org/little-makers/

On the tech side...
* I'm still enamored with Robot Turtles - http://www.thinkfun.com/robotturtles/
* LittleBits are cool - would definitely need supervision and support though for youngun's - http://littlebits.cc/kits/base-kit
* ScratchJr is now available - http://www.scratchjr.org/