Past projects 6
A SMART Slate for My Smarties
Funded Jun 12, 2012I want to sincerely thank you on behalf of my students. The Smart slate has been an invaluable tool in my classroom. The Smart slate has allowed me to write on the board without being confined to the front of the room and without turning my back to my students. I can move around the room with our Smart slate in hand and write on the board while I talk with my students and observe them as they work. It proved especially useful before our smart board was installed mid-year! Before we were given that new technology, I was still able to fully utilize my Smart Notebook software to benefit my students!
One of my favorite things about the Smart slate, and definitely my students' favorite, is that they can write on the board from their very own seat. We can display worksheets or other assignments on the board and complete them or check them together easily and quickly while allowing each student to take part and write on the board. The board is lightweight and easy for the students to pass around the room! It definitely takes some practice to learn how to use the slate and write on it well, but the kids have so enjoyed seeing their writing "magically" appear on the board well-formed and in place or not!
Thank you again for helping us get this great tool for our classroom! My kids are more actively engaged in lessons when we use the Smart slate! They enjoy it as a learning tool, and it is extremely useful to me as a teacher!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Cornett
Junie B. Boosts Reading in Our Class!
Funded May 19, 2012Thank you all for your donations and your help in funding this project. We just used our Junie B. Jones chapter books for literature circles in reading. Each and every student was engaged every day as they read! Compared to our "normal" reading class routine, the students found this to be much more enjoyable, and it was still so beneficial in instruction.
Through the use of these chapter books we were able to review key skills. Each day the students were given a job to either look for and define vocabulary or be the illustrator or the summarizer. Every day those jobs rotated. During our study of these books, each student had the opportunity to perform each job at least twice. The illustrator had to choose one event from the chapter to draw in the illustration booklet they created throughout the week, so they got important practice in differentiating between important and unimportant details. The summarizer had the job of summarizing all of the important events from the chapter in chronological order, providing practice in identifying important details and writing correct sentences and paragraphs. The student in charge of vocabulary had to think of not only themselves but also others when they looked for difficult words from the chapter. They then got invaluable practice in using a dictionary to find fitting definitions for their words. Over the course of our literature circles, I saw every student improve in their use of the dictionary and especially in using guide words to their benefit.
Thank you again for your support of our classroom and for making reading more enjoyable and engaging for my students. They and I truly appreciate your kindness and your generosity.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Cornett
The ART of Reading
Funded Aug 20, 2012Thank you so very much for donating to fund this project! My students love having the chance to be artistic, but due to the cost of supplies we have limited opportunities to complete art projects in our classroom.
With your help, I can now allow my students to complete a different, engaging art project that correlates with a reading story from each of our units. We'll be doing a fun, new project every 4 to 5 weeks this year!
Thank you again for supporting my classroom and my students!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Cornett
This classroom project was brought to life by Lily Sarah Grace Fund and one other donor.Help us LEAP into Learning with New LeapFrog Tag Readers
Funded Mar 15, 2012Thank you so much for donating your hard-earned money to help fund this project and support my classroom and my students! I am so appreciative of all you have given! Without Donors Choose and donors like you, I could not give the students in my class all of the opportunities I desire too! I wish I could do more to express my gratitude!
As I've said before, my students love to have packages delivered, and they always ask if it's from Donors Choose! When our Leap Frog tag readers and books arrived they were just as excited as always! They looked forward to the day that they could use their new "toys" in class. Since the readers require some preparation before use, they had to wait patiently (but it was more like anxiously)!
When the day came that we first used our readers, everyone had a turn to play with it for just a few minutes to get used to it and learn the ropes. As we moved forward and began to use our readers more strategically (especially with a focused group of struggling readers) I saw their potential! My struggling readers became more skilled in areas such as cause and effect, main idea and details, and sequencing which were just a few of the skills targeted in the books we received.
Thank you again for making this a reality for my students! ”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Cornett
This classroom project was brought to life by Leap Frog and 8 other donors.We're Writing? But This is Math!
Funded Dec 20, 2011Thank you all so much for your willingness to help others in need and your donations to our project! The kids absolutely love getting their packages and want to drop everything to inspect the boxes when they arrive! We started using our new binding machine and combs when I developed our February math journals. Each student has a neatly bound 40 page journal now for every month!
I created and implemented journals this year beginning in October, but they were nothing like they are now! They were stapled packets of maybe 10 to 12 pages that were difficult for the kids to use when it came to turning pages. Thanks to your donations and our new tools, the kids say it's easier to turn the pages in their journals and keep them open while they work! They have definitely noticed that our journals look much nicer now, and they're proud to work in them and take care of them! I must say, that other teachers and our principal have noticed too!
Thank you also for the pencils (which are very frequently needed and used), the pens, and the highlighters. It's a good morning for my students when I pass out pens or highlighters to use during their journal work! They love to add color to their work, and it's especially useful in math for illustrating different concepts like fractions or graphs. Again, I can't thank you enough for your generosity. Without the help of donors like you, I couldn't provide all of these tools and materials to my students!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Cornett
Mysterious Motivation
Funded Nov 12, 2011A simple letter could never express my thanks for your thoughtfulness and generosity. The chapter books that you donated to our classroom have been such a pleasant and welcome addition for my students! Many of them are avid readers, and they have breezed through the small classroom library I have collected thus far. Those students were especially pleased to browse through our new books!
Every boy and girl in my class has checked out and read their first chapter book. They have all written a short review telling why they liked the book and completed a book report. They could choose to make a book trailer or video, submit an On-line report, make a poster, or do a traditional written report. I have been pleasantly surprised to see many creative and thorough book reports, and without your donations many of my students wouldn't have been motivated to do the reading or writing asked of them.
It is because of you and donors like you that classrooms like mine are getting the things they need to make our students successful!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Cornett