Phil Campbell Pre-K teachers present at conference workshop

Two Phil Campbell Elementary School Pre-K teachers had the opportunity to present their own workshop at a Pre-K conference in Mobile at the beginning of January. Heather Fowler has been teaching Pre-K for 20 years, and Tonya Bostick has been teaching Pre-K for 21 years. Their workshop was titled “A-ha moments in the Pre-K Classroom.”

“We felt honored to be asked to do this. It makes you feel successful when people want to learn from what you’re doing,” Fowler said.

During their workshop, they showed several hands-on experiments teachers can use in the classroom to get their students engaged.

One of them was “Erupting Rainbows,” where the teachers put bits of watercolor paint in the bottom of ice cube trays, cover it in baking soda and let the kids drip vinegar into the cubes. The vinegar causes a reaction with the baking soda that reveals the color underneath, and eventually they all bubble up and join together, making a rainbow effect.

“They learn that the vinegar is a solution; so, it not only teaches them science, but it also teaches them vocabulary as well,” Bostick said.

The workshop also featured “Rainy Day Fabrics,” where the students pick which material they think will do best in rainy weather: wool, cotton or nylon. Fowler said the students are often surprised to learn that warm materials like wool and cotton won’t keep them warm and dry from the rain.

“Dancing Raisins” is another experiment, in which raisins react in vinegar, “jumping” and “dancing” in the solution.

“Stuff like this keeps their attention. It’s great to have the books, but they also need the hands-on projects to really grasp and learn what it all means,” Bostick said.

Fowler said they get a lot of the activities and projects they try out from other teachers through different social media avenues like Pinterest, but the specific experiments they took to the conference have been big hits with her own students in the classroom.

“For 4-year-olds, almost everything is an a-ha moment because they’re just learning, but at the conference, we focused on math, literacy and science,” Fowler said.

PCES Principal Jackie Ergle said Fowler and Bostick worked beyond their regular classroom hours to prepare for the conference, and she said she is so proud of them for all of the great work they do with Pre-K.

“No one ignites curiosity within little ones like Heather and Tonya,” said Alice Evans, who works with Alabama’s Office of School Readiness.