This Week in Professional Development – Dec. 15 – 18

Take advantage of upcoming webinars offered by Kindermusik International to build up those points you’ll need next April for license renewal.

Using Loyalty Survey Results to Create Raving Fans

Monday, December 15th 10:00am EST

Join Julee Kowallis and Adrian Miller for this webinar where you will learn to interpret parent feedback and discover its true value. Working with actual parent comments, you will become skilled at maximizing the contagious impact of promoters, turning those passives into promoters, and addressing the most candid detractors. By the end of the session, you’ll not only LOVE feedback, you’ll CRAVE it!

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Economic Toolkit

Monday, December 15 3:00pm EST
Wednesday, December 17 11:00am EST

This Economic time provides us the opportunity to out perform our competition and over deliver on our brand promises. Learn how this tool kit can help you achieve that. This webinar is led by the Educator Development Team

 

Knocking Their Socks Off!

Monday, December 15 9:00pm EST
Wednesday, December 17 12:00pm EST

Ever wonder how to keep your families coming back for more semester after semester and with each additional child all the way through Young Child and tell all their friends about it? Discover ways you can become a leader (aka Diva, as in successful female personality) in your classroom where learning flourishes and fun is always at hand. Learn the power of body language and non-verbal cuing. Learn how to make FOLs pop! Investigate rituals, pacing and manipulatives and how they can create value and interaction. Create communities not just classrooms. Be the magic that makes their week sparkle.

 

Using “Green” to Cure the Enrollment Blues

Tuesday, December 16 11:00am EST

Using “Green” to Cure the Enrollment Blues
(Insights into the Marketing Value of KI’s Sustainability Initiatives)

Join KiDesign’s Molly Dumbleton for a meaningful discussion on how focusing on Kindermusik International’s Sustainability can help you drive enrollments for your next classes!

 

Getting to YES!

Tuesday, December 16 4:00pm EST

Join Terry Kilgo, Manager of Kindermusik International’s Recruiting team, for an eye-opening discussion about how to reframe and address objections your prospective parents may have and how to turn them into ENROLLMENTS!

 

ABC, Music, + Me!

Tuesday, December 16 9:00pm EST

Join Kindermusik Educator and Employee-Owner, Cindy Bousman for an informative discussion about why adding ABC, Music & Me is an important decision for your program

Loyalty Survey Help

Wednesday, December 17 3:00pm EST

You’ve raised your hand to say “YES!” to Loyalty. Now take the next steps! Join Carol Penney as we focus on the fundamentals of the Loyalty Survey. Learn how to enter your parent data, and more!

 

Sharing the Vision

Thursday, December 18 9:00am EST

What can we do today to make our business viable for tomorrow? See research showing the buying trends and consumer expectations of today’s and tomorrow’s mom.

See how Kindermusik is working to better equip you to serve the consumer shift to online shopping and enrollment as well as the developing expectations of today’s mom once in your program.

 

Demo Days

Thursday, December 18 9:00pm EST

This Demo Days Discussion will focus on how to promote, locate and network to create your most successful demonstration to date!

Please join Kindermusik International’s Cindy Bousman for this webinar.

Atlanta Area PKE Meeting – Friday, Sept. 5th

Atlanta Area Kindermusik Chapter

Let’s Get Together Again!

Friday, September 5, 10:30am

Dunwoody Baptist Church

Jane Hendrix – hostess

 Hello Atlanta Area PKE!

Hope everyone had a wonderful summer – time to relax and rest a bit.  I’m hoping that many of us are available for a last minute get together before we’re all up and running our Fall programs.

 We’ll need at least 10 educators to join us for this meeting for it to take place so RSVP ASAP.  With 10 attendees, this will count towards the 100 points that will be required for licensing beginning in April, 2009. 

Bring your new ideas, bring questions, we’ll look at a new webinar, and just enjoy each others enthusiasm regarding this amazingly incredible music program we’re so blessed to be teaching.

Hope to see everyone Friday!

Amy VanderLugt, Atlanta Area PKE

Merri Williams, GA PKE

Jane Hendrix, Hostess and Webinar Facilitator Extraordinaire
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From I-285 East or West:
Exit # 29 Ashford Dunwoody Road Go North on Ashford Dunwoody Road approx. 1.75 miles Past Perimeter Mall DBC will be on your left

From GA 400 South:
Exit #5 Dunwoody/Sandy Springs Make a left onto Abernathy Road go approx. ¼ mile Make a left onto Mount Vernon Road, continue approx. 1.1 miles DBC will be on your right

From GA 400 North:
Exit #5A Dunwoody/Sandy Springs Merge onto Abernathy Road (you can only go in one direction) make your way to the far left hand lane At the 2nd traffic light make a left onto Mount Vernon Road, continue approx. 1.1 miles DBC will be on your right.

Please RSVP Amy, Merri, or Jane so we can adequately plan for attendees.

Atlanta Area PKE Meeting Cancellation

The next meeting of the Greater Atlanta Area PKE, scheduled for this Friday, April 25th, at 11AM has been postponed until July.  Due to several circumstances, notably construction and renovation in the music suite at Dunwoody Baptist Church where we meet, as well as many educators having *packed* schedules right now, we felt it better to postpone until this summer, giving more folks time to plan ahead. 

There are some plans now in the works for a local PDS here in July as well as our own local PKE meeting and planning for the Kindermusik convention in November in Raleigh, North Carolina.  We will have further information here as soon as details are nailed down.

You don’t want to miss this one!

Shared on the KM Loop by Dee Dee Gibson of Clearwater, Florida:

I wanted to post this extention that is almost sure to get some 
appreciative laughs from your Village moms:
 
I sang the Cock-a-doodle doo exercise song through (remember – the horse lost the shoe and the kittly lost the fiddling stick…), then  asked,

“Have any of you had a morning like that recently? Then you’ll identify with this verse:”
 
“Cock-a-doodle- doo, my baby’s lost her shoe,
 And mommy’s lost her purse and keys, 
Oh what are we to do?”
 
“Cock-a-doodle- doo, What are we going to do?
 Till mommy finds her purse and keys 
I’ll sit and play with you!”

Don’t forget! —- Forget what, you say?!

Calling all Georgia Kindermusik educators -

This Friday, February 15th, we celebrate the kick-off meeting of the greater Atlanta Partnership of Kindermusik Educators.  Bring yourselves and an idea you’d like to share relating to one of this semester’s units – something that your families *really* enjoyed, whether it be an activity, an extension, or a book.  Also, if you’ve got something that you’ve had difficulty with making it work in class, plan on sharing that as well. We are here to come alongside one another and support each other!

We will also have exciting news about a possible state-wide advertising campaign through the Georgia Public Broadcasting System that would be *extremely* affordable for Kindermusik educators throughout the state.  More on that later this week!

Come join us this Friday and enjoy the sizzling energy that fills a room when you get Kindermusik educators together. I can tell you from personal experience from attending a local meeting, PDS, and KM convention – there’s absolutely *NOTHING* like it!

For maps and directions, please visit the blog here. See you there!

Heads up! Check your calendar!

There will be an organizational meeting for a metro Atlanta/North Georgia PKE chapter on Saturday, August 18th, at Dunwoody Baptist Church, 1445 Mt. Vernon Road, Atlanta, Georgia, from 10AM to 12 PM.  This is an organizational-type meeting to put together a local PKE chapter in the metro Atlanta/North Georgia area, but we will also have additional topics of discussion.  Any Kindermusik educator is welcome and invited to attend.

      Topics will include organizing the metro Atlanta/North Georgia chapter, the Demo Days campaign the following week, convention travel information, *and* Jane’s recent trip to South Africa for the Kindermusik/PKE convention held there.  We will also be planning on eating lunch together somewhere near the church.  If you’d like to attend, please email me  (click on the link) and let me know, so we can accurately plan for seating and room space.  If you have any suggestions for additional topics, we need those as well!  Hope to see *TONS* of you there! 

 Dunwoody Baptist Church, 1445 Mt. Vernon Road
Atlanta, Georgia  30338

From I-285 East or West:
Exit # 29 Ashford Dunwoody Road  – Go North on Ashford Dunwoody Road approx. 1.75 miles past Perimeter Mall.  DBC will be on your left.

From GA 400 South:
Exit #5 Dunwoody/Sandy Springs – Make a left onto Abernathy Road, go approx. ¼ mile. Make a left onto Mount Vernon Road,  and continue approx. 1.1 miles.  DBC will be on your right.

From GA 400 North:
Exit #5A Dunwoody/Sandy Springs – Merge onto Abernathy Road (you can only go in one direction).  Make your way to the far left hand lane. At the 2nd traffic light, make a left onto Mount Vernon Road,  and continue approx. 1.1 miles.  DBC will be on your right.

Click here to get directions to Dunwoody Baptist from your home.

Are you missing out on something totally free and *really* special?

 

This summer Kindermusik International is offering the Kindermusik educator a series of professional development classes via the internet and teleconferences that are totally *free*.  With topics such as “Overcoming Objections without Anxiety”, “Retention 101″, “Your Virtuoso”, “Your Grocery Store Speech”, and “The Research Behind Kindermusik”, you have a variety to choose from. 

Some of these are one-hour Go To Meetings which allows participants to see simultaneously , on their own personal computer screen, the same visual aids from the instructor, while communicating via a teleconference.  Direct links are provided via email upon registration as well as informational documents needed for the class. 

I have participated in two of these and they are truly *marvelous*!  The last one I experienced was “Retention 101″ with Katie Henderson.  It was extremely well-presented, with additional clear, concise visual aids that we received via email afterwards. Katie was a wonderful instructor who made everyone feel welcome, no matter their level of experience and expertise, and no question was frowned upon. (Thank you, Katie!)

KI is also providing podcasts via email and the Masterful Minutes in the Teachers Lounge.  Besides the ones for this summer, there is a treasure trove of information available on the Masterful Minutes page with additional links to QuickTime videos as well.  Check them out here.

There are also five (5) one-day Professional Development Seminars scheduled across the country, beginning July 28th in Greensboro. 

In Georgia, our PDS will meet on Saturday, August 18th, at Dunwoody Baptist Church, 1445 Mount Vernon Road, Dunwoody, Georgia.   This is located just 1.75 miles north of Perimeter Mall, off Exit 29 of I-285.  Dunwoody Baptist is located at the intersection of Ashford-Dunwoody and Mount Vernon Roads.  More details on the Georgia PDS will be coming later.

So how do I find out when these are available and how do I register?

Simple – visit the Training Calendar and decide which ones you want to attend.

Then visit the Educator’s Store online and go to “Kindermusik Courses” located in the left hand margin.  You can register for the classes by “buying” these through the store.  This includes going through the checkout process, submitting your credit card number, but the final charge is $0.00.  In other words, *FREE*!

So, the next question is: have you taken advantage of any of these free opportunities?  

Another ABC WebCT Course Offered

I just received this information in my inbox and thought I’d pass it along in case some of you who didn’t get into the first class still wanted to sign up.   From KI:

The Partnership of Kindermusik Educators presents a new course—
ABC Music & Me™: New online classes begin March 4th.
Register today!
It’s as easy as A, B, C!
Join a qualified Kindermusik mentor as she guides you through five short lessons—one lesson every other week—to share just how easy it can be to incorporate ABC Music & Me into your program offering. Learn the following:

Review ABC Music & Me lesson components, pedagogy issues, and classroom management.
Create your promotional packet and confidently approach learning center directors.
Price ABC Music & Me and even offer a financial incentive to center directors.
Generate $4200 annually with just one ABC Music & Me class! (based on 10 children per unit)
Transition from Music Box™ to ABC Music & Me, and use this curriculum in your studio program.

By the end of the course you will have successfully approached learning centers and expanded your Kindermusik program. These training sessions fill quickly, and space is limited. Register from the Kindermusik Courses page in the Educator Store. This course is free to registrants that demonstrate intentional participation* . Be prepared to enter your credit card information. Your card will not be charged but it will reserve your seat in the class. Activities include one lesson every other week; communication with your peers via chat sessions, teleconference and email; video clips of actual classes in the learning center setting; conducting a demo class, and quizzes to assess your progress. Course concludes mid April. Completion earns 1.0 CEU.
*Time commitment is 10 hours on average to complete the course. Educators that register and then fail to post their coursework online will be assessed a fee of $40.
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The first Web class filled very quickly.  If you’re interested, sign in to the Teacher’s Lounge and register now!

A Taste of Convention

Many thanks to Molly McGinn!

Did you think you were seeing things?

For those of you teaching Young Child this fall, you may have received new dulcimers and wondered what on earth was going on?!  The dulcimers have three strings, instead of the customary two!  Just in case you wondered what to do with that third string, Carol Penney explains the ins and outs of working with three-string dulcimers.