Story Time Slime Connecting Hands-on Science with Children's Literature

Early childhood teachers know that getting kids excited about science is only part of the challenge. Today’s young learners need more than excitement and motivation – they need opportunities to actually DO more science on a daily basis. This hands-on science training is for early childhood teachers who need creative science integration strategies and who want to learn how to make science more fun and meaningful for their students.

Story Time Slime is more than just a collection of great hands-on activities, it’s a whole new way to teach science through the medium of children’s literature. Discover why SCIENCE is the great melting pot of each and every discipline you teach, especially reading. Because of Julie Gintzler’s unique approach and classroom-tested methods, you’ll teach more science this year that you’ve ever taught before... guaranteed!

Join Julie Gintlzer for a one-day training that will help you build more literature connections, teach more science and have a lot more fun as you create unforgettable learning experiences.

Building the Science & Literature Connections…

• Uncover the secrets to developing an integrated curriculum that teaches science through the medium of children’s literature.
• Use elements of the story line to introduce or reinforce fundamental parts of your early childhood science curriculum.
• Learn how to present hands-on science activities that boost creativity and help to develop critical thinking skills
• Take home more than twenty kid-tested, teacher-approved activities that are guaranteed to get young learners doing more science the very next day.

Powered by Steve Spangler Science
Good teachers do hands-on activities, but great teachers use hands-on science to teach critical thinking skills and to create unforgettable learning experiences. Julie Gintzler is an early childhood science specialist who combines her passion for teaching hands-on science with her love for great children’s literature to create incredible learning opportunities for children. Steve Spangler invited Julie to join his teacher training team after seeing her in action and experiencing her unique approach to getting her students to think like scientists.

“Not only is Julie an amazing kindergarten teacher, her strategies for connecting science with children’s literature really work,” says Steve Spangler. “I attended her first workshop in 2003 and I was hooked. Her library of children’s books and collection of hands-on science activities is amazing – she could do a week’s worth of teacher training. Julie is a fantastic trainer and the perfect addition to our selection of teacher training programs.”

Perfect for Early Childhood Teachers (Pre-K to 2nd Grade)
This seminar is designed with one guiding principle in mind... teachers learn best by doing! Julie’s approach to teaching children and teachers is the same – make it hands-on and get involved (no boring PowerPoint or research statistics at this presentation). You’ll personally conduct more than twenty hands-on activities that are focused around the themes of air, water, color, weather, the senses, force and motion, magnetism and the environment. Each activity is easily related to the national standards and helps you teach the basic skills of science inquiry –to count, compare, classify, observe and measure(the C.C.C.O.M. approach). Julie deconstructs every experience to give you the strategies for presenting the literature in a way that provokes questions in the minds of the children, and then she teaches you how to build the science connection that invites children to ask even more questions! Multiply that times twenty and you’re in for an amazing day of learning.

More Than Cute Arts & Crafts Ideas… We Need Science Training!
When Steve Spangler asked early childhood teachers what would be the best way to teach science, teachers responded with a no nonsense approach. “Give us easy science activities that help our students build critical thinking skills... use the scientific method... and make them so engaging that kids want to learn more on their own.” Let’s face it, science is already fun, but it also has to be relevant to the curriculum and to the real world.And teachers need science lessons that can be easily integrated into all areas of the curriculum. “The days of trying to squeeze science in at the last minute are over... we need something new and easy.” Julie Gintzler’s Story Time Slime is different than any other workshop you have ever experienced – you’ll take home more than a dozen ideas that you can put to use immediately.

Here’s Why YOU Should Attend…

• Participate in more than 20 ready-to-use science activities that are inquiry-based, standard-related and kid-tested
• Use elements of the story line in popular pieces of children’s literature to teach and reinforce fundamental building blocks of your science curriculum
• Learn how to become a more effective early childhood teacher without spending more money on stuff you won’t use
• Gain a better understanding of the real science behind all of fun activities
• Turn ordinary science activities into unforgettable learning experiences

In just one day, you’ll be well on your way to using Julie’s strategies for creating unforgettable learning experiences for your students. You’ll learn how to reinforce concepts with hands-on activities and examples of classroom applications. You’ll leave this seminar with the knowledge, presentation skills, integration ideas and tools to make science a favorite part of your teaching day.

About the Science Training Curriculum
This seminar is designed to enliven and enrich both science and literature in early childhood classrooms. Julie goes beyond the WOW factor to make science meaningful for young children. Gone are the days when early childhood teachers are told to just water down upper-grade material. This seminar is intended specifically for Pre-K through second grade teachers. The curriculum incorporates topics such as air, color mixing, light, weather and chemistry with literature favorites like Rainbow Fish and Mouse Paint . You’ll participate in more than 20 brain building activities that incorporate tactile stimulus and sensory motor coordination while encouraging children to wonder, discover, explore and question. Each standards-based lesson reinforces the idea of “play with a purpose.” Come build six foot sculptures of air and muck around in your very own Slime Factory. Before the day is out your brain will be brimming with creative activities you can do with your students TOMORROW! You will learn the secret to choosing literature that will make the strongest scientific impact with your students. In just one day you will acquire a bank of ideas that will have your students believing you are a science rock star and your administrator wondering how more teachers can share your new-found enthusiasm!

Take-Home Materials and Learning Resources
You’ll receive a take-home “First Days of Science” kit filled with the learning tools you’ll need to implement Julie’s strategies for teaching hands-on science. Remember… this is not your ordinary sit-and-watch lecture. Be prepared to perform more than 20 hands-on science activities and take-home all of the necessary materials to get your students excited about science the very next day.

Here’s What Past Participants Say…
“The ‘Hands-on - Minds-on’ approach is a wonderful example of how children and teachers should experience science education. I continue to support your innovative approach that is setting the standard for inquiry-based teacher training.”

“I am so stoked!!! This is the best seminar I have ever attended. It was insightful, fun, exciting, fun, educational, fun, inspired, fun and did I say fun??? I will take the “science torch” and show other teachers how much “fun” science is and can
be. It’s a new way to discover the understanding and exploration of science that you can take to any grade level. Thank you!”

“Will use most, if not all, activities with my children that I serve, my 3-5 year olds. I love to incorporate science and math activities and these are all wonderful.
Awesome workshop!!!”

“The chance to learn the science concepts and activities and then put them into practice is like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. This workshop enabled us to take some risks...and develop our own presentation skills and curriculum connections.”

“Best Science workshop I have attended in a long time! I will use practically
all the experiments in my room. I teach Science to self contained special
education students 6th, 7th and 8th grade so each one will fit with my grade
level expectations! Thanks!”

“When I walked through the front door, my own children expected me to perform a science magic show in the living room. The next thing I knew we were knee deep in experiments and my kitchen looked like a lab. My children were begging me to teach them science. How weird is this?”

Mission Control… We Have a Serious Problem
Dr. Joanne Vasquez, member of the National Science Board, recently delivered the bad news in an open letter to the education community.

“The recently released Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study 2003 (TIMS)—an international student assessment conducted in 15 countries and released on December 14, 2004—tells us that American fourth-graders are doing no better in science than they did in 1995. Ten years later, and still no progress has been made with our youngest learners. But why should we care if six-year olds take science or not? The answer is simple: because future innovations in science, technology, engineering, defense, national security, and a whole lot more could be at stake.

Science instruction has come to a dismal halt or been severely curtailed in far too many elementary classrooms across the United States. While we do not argue that these subjects are also important, science, like all subjects, requires a developmental building of conceptual understanding that must start in kindergarten. Yet many students reach the intermediate and middle grades with little or no science instruction, and if they receive any, it happened when the teacher could squeeze it in.

To effectively improve elementary science, schools and administrators need to value the science education they offer, and they must provide quality professional development, mentoring, and resources to our elementary teachers. This will be vital if as a nation we want to truly see students achieve in science.”

The theme for teacher training workshops 20 years ago was, “Science is Fun!” Dozens of professional development workshops and institutes did everything possible to get teachers turned on to teaching science. Steve Spangler refers to this as the “arts & crafts” period of science education training. A survey of principals in the Cherry Creek School District in Colorado revealed that students were having fun doing lots of hands-on activities, but the translation from ‘real fun’ to ‘real learning’ didn’t happen in most instances. “Just because kids are doing a hands-on activity doesn’t mean they’re learning,” according to Steve Spangler. “We as teachers need to learn how to effectively use inquiry-based activities to teach our students how to better use the scientific method and to stimulate their problem-solving skills.”

Yes, science is fun, but now we need creative ideas and strategies for integrating science into our curriculum. The goal of Story Time Slime is to show early childhood educators (pre-K to 3) how to use proven best practices and teaching strategies to make science more exciting, more engaging, more interactive and more meaningful in their classroom.

About the Instructor
If you have ever met someone who spends equal amounts of time at Home Depot as Barnes and Noble, than you can relate to Julie Gintzler. Julie prides herself on conducting fast-paced, energetic workshops with the goal of re-energizing a tired curriculum. Her enthusiasm for literature leads her to many late night shopping sprees online.

Julie Gintzler lives just outside of Chicago, IL where she has taught full-day kindergarten for the past 20 years. She has been the recipient of several grants from the Hammond Education Foundation to support her innovative classroom techniques. Julie currently serves as an instructor for the National Hands-On Science Institute, which provides science training for teachers and administrators from around the country. Julie earned a Master's degree in Teaching & Leadership, and is quickly gaining a reputation as a teachers’ teacher.

Trained as a Science Ambassador at the National Hands-On Science Institute in 2004, she is the most recent addition to the Steve Spangler Science speaking division and was recognized by Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers in 2007. Julie consistently receives rave reviews from participants who attend her conference seminars and teacher training workshops on integrating science and children's literature.