Tamara and I arrived in Atlanta this afternoon to attend the NAEYC Conference (National Association for the Education of Young Children). We took the train to our hotel. The station (Peachtree) holds some record as being one of the deepest train station on the earth. We had to ride up the tallest escalator I've ever seen.
There was a dolphin to greet us outside of the hotel. I have no idea why.
Our hotel has 73 floors.
To get to the conference, we went through some cool Sky Tubes.
Then we walked through Olympic Park.
It was quite lovely.
After we registered, we took our puppets and went to hear the keynote speaker, Mem Fox. She is a famous author of books for children and adults. She came all the way from Australia to speak to us. The room where she was speaking was HUGE! There are more than 25,000 people attending the conference from every state in the country, every territory and from 30 different countries.
Mem Fox talked about the importance of reading aloud to children. Years of research has shown that reading to children is one of the single best predictors of not only literacy, but school success in general. She also talked about the kinds of books that are best to read to young children, stressing the importance of rhyme, repetition and rhythm. She talked about how to read to kids and then (this was the best part), SHE READ TO US! She said a book should make a child feel something, should, "change a child's emotional temperature." Her books are quite wonderful, and we will soon have some in our classroom. I can't wait to get back to read to the Catbirds.
This is her advice on reading to tiny people:
After her talk, there was another surprise: The Atlanta Drum Line came out to play. I thought about The Catbirds and what great drummers they are becoming. Here is a part of their performance:
After, it was time to walk back to our hotel and get ready for tomorrow. Tamara and I will learn as much as we can in the next few days, and then we will have a chance to teach the teachers ourselves. We will keep you posted.
This is our hotel, and a beautiful dusk sky.
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