“Susan did a great job, her enthusiasm and passion were magnetic” 

“Susan was very knowledgeable, so enthusiastic and was into what she was doing” 

“The instructor was fabulous ! Please do more workshops!”

Caregiver comments from TFCCN conference 

Exciting new professional development opportunity: gain two literacy hours while at work, PLUS your students get a special FabFriz story time! Teachers will learn best practices by observing Susan do an intentional read aloud with students demonstrating how to keep students engaged while learning pre-literacy skills.

Then, she will visit classrooms to model a lesson that ties into the books read. Discussion time for 30 minutes afterwards for questions and to plan a lesson using the new techniques they learned. 

This is a fun and hands-on workshop that demonstrates simple, unique, and attention getting tips for teachers to use during read aloud time.

Teachers will learn how to authentically incorporate early literacy instruction into story time while balancing fun and engagement with the books that they are reading. This workshop will cover the 6 early literacy skills and the best books to use for each skill: print motivation, print awareness, phonemic awareness, letter knowledge, narrative skills, and vocabulary. During the workshop, participants will create story telling props (hands on activity) to use that help students focus on what you are teaching and reading.

Examples of techniques covered in this workshop include: using your voice to create a build up of excitement during stories, ways for 2-3 year olds to help you “read” to keep them engaged, and ideas to make the story come to life.

We will also discuss the ALA’s suggestions for teaching early literacy skills of Reading, Singing, Playing, Writing, and Talking. Books and lesson plans will be given for how to integrate these skills best in the classroom for an exciting, yet fully intentional play time. This training is 3 hours, and can be broken up into two 1.5 hour trainings. 

Teachers will actually participate in a dramatic play adventure! An exciting environment will be set up for them to discover including sounds, sights and sometimes tastes and smells. A task is given to complete and once the activity is done, the lights will come on and they will learn how to create this unique way of story telling in their own classrooms. This highly interactive technique can be used to teach literacy, science, art, social studies, and math, layering at least 3 or more of these subjects in one story time experience. It’s basically a Fabfriz story time for adults! Budget-friendly and easy ways to make props and costumes for several lessons will be discussed and demonstrated. This technique has been proven to be a wonderful way to reach students on many different levels keeping their attention and learning without even knowing it. This is an interactive, highly engaging, and inspiring workshop. 1-2 hours 

This is for schools or conferences that do not need TrainTN approval, but lots of fun ideas, lesson plans and to wonder, what is she going to show us next? Tailored curriculum will be created for your educators and are discussed beforehand. 

Need an engaging way to teach early literacy skills, writing, history, science and art all in one lesson? Learn the ancient art of shadow puppetry. This unique art form appeals to preschool students playing with shadows as well as older elementary students because it’s not your ordinary “cute” puppet performance. Younger students can practice narrative skills by telling an original story or to re-tell a story they just read. Older students can create a performance including all of the facts they need to know about a certain history lesson which leads to writing and story telling skills. In this workshop, educators will learn methods of building a theater and shadow puppets, using a variety of methods to create backgrounds with colors and changing elements. Working in small groups, they will write a short play, create the puppets and present it to the group. This training is 2-3 hours depending on size of group. 

This presentation is all about engaging your audience to make sure they are actually learning what you are teaching! Learn simple but effective ways to adjust the way you present to capture the attention of your listeners. 

1. Advice on presenting in person and making it come alive

2. How to adjust your information so that it is digestible 

3. Power Point Pointers 

4. Zoom basics when presenting online

5. The do’s and don’t’s of group activities 

This 1 hour workshop is perfect for anyone who is in the field of presenting trainings for educators.