Ukiah's Heart Giving Page

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Dear Friends & family,

It is with overwhelmingly sincere heart felt gratitude that we express our happiness for the wonderful investment that you have bestowed upon the students lives. Your investments will greatly enrich the students’ progress in my classroom. The gifts will be used to help purchase various activities to increase students’ visual perceptions, auditory discrimination skills and various matching skills. My students are excited about the gifts and would like to thank each one of you individually for your support.”

With gratitude,

Ms. Withers

Dear Donor, Thank you for your donation Durable headphones to our third grade class. The headphones that you donated to ours class has helped us everyday.  Our students are able to focus on the computer assignments without interruption of the headphones being broken, bent or loose.  Those distractions are long gone and we have all of you to thank. With our budget cuts and our economy, it's a blessing to have people like you caring for our children's future and setting them up to be successful.

Thank you again for your generous donation to our Third grade class.   &nbsp”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Torres

I am a 6th year special education teacher working in a low-income public elementary school. Last year the district restructured classrooms. My new students were amazing, but they were lower-functioning and had more sensory needs than what I was accustomed to. Suddenly the resources I had available were no longer appropriate to this new population and I struggled to obtain and create curriculum and sensory experiences that would help these special children be successful at school.

I noticed that several of the children became easily over-stimulated and benefited from a quiet place where they could calm down with a little sensory deprivation. These children sought out places like closets or hiding under desks. In an effort to meet their needs but have more appropriate break spaces, I thought a quick pop-up tent would be perfect! The kids love it! It works both as a nice calming area and also as a fun play tent for social interactions. Plus, it is extremely quick and easy to use which is important for a busy teacher like me!

On the other end of the spectrum, some children needed a way to get their excess energy out so that they could focus on their education. Since it is not practical to have recess several times a day, we needed a quiet motor activity within the classroom that would not be disruptive to other students. The trampoline is perfect! The students love to jump, gain motor skills and release excess energy! This activity does not take significant time away from learning, have difficult transitions and ultimately allows the students to focus more on learning.

Thank you so much for your support of these sensory tools. They have had a significant positive impact on the classroom and on these very special children.”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Hefty

This letter shows only a small portion of what the stability balls have meant to our classroom and the student's learning. These young students still have the wiggles in them and need a way to be successful while also moving and/or bouncing around. The stability balls allow them to do this.

I use the balls while teaching reading groups and have watched students who struggle with sitting still, able to focus on the books while also bouncing or wiggling about. The students do not have to be confined to a hard, plastic chair that doesn't allow for movement but instead can easily move without causing distractions for themselves or the rest of the group.

Thank you for donating to our project and allowing these students a more flexible way to learn.”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Hawkins

Your generous donation has opened the world of reading to my students. Most of them do not even know the alphabet or the sounds of letters. They are not able to listen to stories on CD or Tape because of your kindness. They can choose the book they want and sit in a quiet spot with a headphone on and enjoy the story. They no longer have to share a limited space at a listening post. These students have independence to choose their own book, find a quiet spot and listen to it. Many of them are trying harder to learn to read so they can explore more books. I am so proud of their efforts and enthusiasm. Thank you again for caring.”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Schwartz

Wow! I never know how much the IPad would change my classroom. We use it everyday and in every lesson. The students love it! I am also glad they get a chance to use one and learn about the technology that is available to them. They are always asking to use! My test scores have improved tremendously. The only problem we seem to have is we only have one! Thank you so much for your great donation. My students and I truly appreciate it and we are very thankful!”

With gratitude,

Mrs. S.

The true joy of teaching for me is the look on the kids' faces when they are enjoying the lesson that I planned for them. Even better than that, is the look they get when they finally understand something.

Thanks to your generosity, I get to experience that kind of joy over and over again. My students LOVE the books and they ask me to read to them almost everyday! They also love to read to each other as you can see from the photos. Their favorite is Knuffle Bunny Too.

Learning to generate grammatically correct sentences can be a major challenge for some of my language-impaired students. They usually groan when I tell them that we are going to be working on sentence structure and grammar. But the Sentence Factory game changes all that. The kids can't wait to play! They practice how to build sentences on a wide variety of topics by answering Who, What, When and Where questions.

A heartfelt THANK YOU from the children and me!”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Fischer

Thanks so much for your generous donations to our Rocking for Sensory project. The student were so excited to see the rocker when they came into school. Each student immediately went to sit in the rocker when they first saw it! As we have incorporated our rocking area into our daily use, the kids are eager to take a book and go sit in the rocker, this has helped to increase their reading time because reading is their ticket to rocking. The rocker is also used as a calming technique with my students with autism and they often choose this type of sensory input over others available.

Due to current budget cuts across our school system, this type of additional equipment just is not available for purchase. My students would not have the choices they have if it weren't for generous from people like you.

Thank you again for supporting schools across the United States!

”

With gratitude,

Ms. Hahn

Thank you so much for your generosity and support in making this project a reality for my students so that they may be heard.

My students were absolutely ecstatic with materials made by the Boardmaker program. They were engaged and wanted to use the picture symbols right away! This program is absolutely perfect for my students and their abilities. Boardmaker allows my students to better express their wants/needs and get them met. My students are also able to read better with assistance of the picture symbols. Classroom teachers utilize this program to aid in conveying curriculum effectively. It is a great addition to classrooms in regards to academic instruction, schedules, behavior charts, communication rings, if/then boards, communication boards, and assistive communication devices. My students absolutely love the colorful pictures.

Thanks again for supporting my students and providing them with this amazing program that allows my students to be heard. ”

With gratitude,

Ms. Ramos

Thank you so much for your generous donation to our classroom. The literacy and writing materials that we received have impacted my students greatly.

I am happy to say that we now have writing materials in each interest area ("center") of the classroom. My students love to explore writing on a daily basis. For example, they use the child-safe clipboards to take "food orders" in the Dramatic Play area. They also like to use writing boards and dry erase markers in the Writing Center. In the Math Center, they practice writing numbers and shapes on the mini-magic boards. In the Block Center, they use the clipboards to draw something related to what they built. Writing has become an important part of their life.

Letters have also become an important part of my students' lives. They really enjoy playing with all of the alphabet materials that you provided. For example, they take turns with the large ABC wooden puzzle, and once they finish the puzzle, they will jump up and down excitedly. They ask a teacher to help name the letters. My students also enjoy looking for the letters in their name and making name necklaces with the large ABC beads. They help each other look for and name letters. They are very interested in learning the letters in their name and some of them have even started copying their name on the whiteboards that you provided us!

Thank you for supporting early childhood education!”

With gratitude,

Ms. J.