Past projects 10
Rapid Reading Throw Down
Funded Dec 25, 2019Thank you so much for your donation to reading project. My students have been reading their books and loving them! Many of the students have found great success by excelling on their reading comprehension assessments related to the books. They are very proud of their progress, and they enjoy exploring the variety of topics on which the books are written.
In addition to reading the books as part of their Throw Down Challenge, your donation has also helped supply enough books for our students to take home during this time of National Emergency. While they are at home reading, they will also communicate with me and the other students in our class about their books through Google Classroom.
Your donation has proven to extend beyond the classroom and meet a need we did not see coming, with our schools being closed until further notice. You have provided our students with a resource that engages them in reading while meeting them at their level of reading.
We appreciate you taking your investment in the academic growth of our kids!”
With gratitude,
Teacher Hawkins
Get Out! Flexible Seating, Inside and Out.
Funded Jan 31, 2019Thank you for your donation to our camping chairs! My students are already enjoying their chairs as the weather this spring has been amazing for outdoor lessons! Especially during testing season, their chairs have provided them a much needed break from the typical everyday classroom environmental stress. With these chairs, students are able to work both inside and outside in flexible seating arrangements. They are comfortably able to work in groups or individually around the school and outside. Their chairs providing them with a relaxed, less formal learning space.
With your help, our students are getting a break from the boredom of the daily classroom desk and are learning in new environments.”
With gratitude,
Teacher Hawkins
Nearpod for North Hab
Funded Feb 3, 2018Thank you for funding our project for Nearpod! My students have been exploring the site through the Spring semester as they have been reading the novel The Boy at the Top of the Mountain. Through the program you have provided, they have been able to go on a virtual field trip through the Palace of Versailles, explore France and Germany, and have exposure to lessons in history related to WWII that create vivid, engaging learning opportunities and instigate insightful conversations the classroom setting. We have been able to learn together and grow together as a team, and we will continue that growth as we move into the next school year and build upon our knowledge of the program.
Thank you so very much for your sponsorship and providing Nearpod to our learning community! This resource will be utilized for the coming months year and will set the stage for future use of technology in our school!
We are uploading our impact letters for you to view! Please know that with your donation, you have provided us with the ability to connect in our classroom in a way that is above the standard of technology generally available to us in our rural school setting. We are excited about this opportunity to set the stage for the future of technology in our daily classrooms!”
With gratitude,
Teacher Hawkins
Help for Haitian Learners
Funded Mar 14, 2017Thank you for your donation toward our project to help orphans in Haiti get school supplies. Our Builders Club has packaged the school supplies, and they are ready to be distributed to teachers and students in Haiti. We have three teachers 1 current students, and 3 students from our last year's Builders Club traveling to Haiti in June. These schools will be distributed to a school there in the Valley of Hope, Galette Chambon, Haiti. Will will also give supplies to the 30 orphans at our sponsored orphanage in Haiti. The orphans will be traveling back with our teacher team to tour the United States as a choir. They will visit our school in August to sing for us and tour our school before their return to Haiti in October. We are very excited about the connections you have helped us make to help children all the way in another world!
Thank you for your help! We will be sending you pictures of our teacher/student team delivering supplies and of our orphans when they tour our school.
Many Blessings to you!
NHMS Builders Club
Heather Hawkins, Doug Vermilya, Jordan Terrell, and Students”
With gratitude,
Teacher Hawkins
Sewing for our Future!
Funded Aug 29, 2016Dear Donor,
We are so excited about our new sewing machines! You have given us not only the opportunity to learn new skills but to pass your blessings along to our kids in Haiti. We are currently making dresses for kids in Haiti. These dresses will be personally delivered to the kids we sponsor in Haiti. This summer, we will donate the sewing machines and sewing materials to a school in Haiti...where our supplies will be used to teach the Haitian students to sew.
We have just started to learn these new skills, and we are so very grateful for your support. Thank you for the opportunity to continue to connect with the Haitian kids we love!”
With gratitude,
Teacher Hawkins
This classroom project was brought to life by Ashoka & Think It Up Supporters and 5 other donors.The Bobcat Charleston Challenge
Funded Dec 28, 2015It is difficult for me to put into words the impact of our Charleston trip for our students and staff. The experience has been life changing for our entire school (all students and staff).
For many of our students, this experience was their first and most intense exposure to an outside world. Considering we are a rural community that gets limited funds to provide such opportunities for our kids, this was (for many) their only step outside of their community. One specific student continuously commented that she fell in love with Charleston, and might one day move there. Providing her an opportunity to see communities that call to her spirit will forever be a similar impact for many of our kids.
For many of our kids (and myself) it was a reflective opportunity to understand the gravity of war. Having stayed on the USS Yorktown and touring the ship in addition to touring the submarine, battleship, the Vietnam exhibit, Ft Moultrie and exploring the aircraft on site at Patriot's Point were reflective opportunities to understand the heroism of our military... current and past. This opportunity has not only given our students a new understanding that war is great, but it has also inspired our future heroes (our students) who will one day fight for our freedom in a significant way.
Charleston has a way of encouraging diversity of the soul. Enduring throughout our trip was the opportunity to appreciate diversity, investigate into new cultures, and referencing a common social bond. Through our explorations in Charleston, students were exposed to a culturally diverse community. As a part of their journey, students were exposed to elements of Charleston that inspire the soul...including exposure to local art, coastal culture, religion, military history, beach nature, contemporary conflict, and so much more.
Most importantly, students were provided the opportunity to create concrete images of academic messages they hear in our classrooms. Now when we refer to our veterans, we can pull in their experiences and educational lessons from their real-life experience on the USS Yorktown. Now, when we refer to the world Pre-Civil War, they can relate their vision of slave houses on Magnolia Plantation. When we refer to the Civil War, now they can remember seeing Ft. Sumter. Our students now have a physical frame of reference to which they can relate their learnings.
On a final note, we have one specific student that this DonorsChoose project helped to fund. To this students, Charleston may forever be the greatest, happiest moment of his life. You helped to sponsor this child who invested his entire being into his hope to attend this trip! Upon returning from the trip, he experienced a loss greater than any kid should carry. When he returned to school from his loss, he said to me,"...at least I can come to school and smile." If it were not for the Charleston trip you funded, our dear kids might not have a reason to smile! Please consider that this child can represent all of the students who will carry grand memories of YOUR contributions into their future.
When we head into a mission like Charleston, our hopes for impact are grand (though we don't always know the waive of blessings it will create). Thank you, donors, in sharing a grand mission to inspire our students and for exposing them to their fabulous world!”
With gratitude,
Teacher Hawkins
Poetry Pairs
Funded Jun 23, 2015Thank you so very much for your contribution to our classroom through your Poetry Pairs donation! Our students have already started using the poetry books to pair with their year long musical theme projects.
Though the school year has just begun, we have already been successful in presenting several of the poems in the books provided in whole class lessons, and our students are combing through the books to investigate poetry that pairs with their personally selected songs. Through your donation, students are investigating universal themes while making cultural and theme connections between the songs they are so familiar with and the words of the poems.
This pairing allows us to present classic poetry in a less intimidating way to our teens. It helps our teens build an understanding of the power of words in all genres of presentation. Many students have read the biography that prefaces several books and have found a personal connection with individual poets.
In addition to academic supports and personal connections, my students are very impressed and humbled that someone they do not know has invested in their education. When our poetry books arrived, we opened the packages together. We shared in the process of opening a new opportunity for lessons in our classroom. Students rushed to start looking through the books, looked through the books together, and browsed through the illustrations with their friends. They think it is "really cool" that someone would invest in their learning the the classroom!
I thank you for your contribution to my classroom and for your investment in my students! My students thank you for your thoughtfulness and your faith in them as learners! They now know there is a network of people who support them and their learning experience.”
With gratitude,
Teacher Hawkins
Bobcats to Biltmore (or bust)!
Funded Mar 15, 2015On behalf of all of our students, we extend the greatest thanks for your sponsorship for our Bobcats to Biltmore or Bust project! It's difficult to express how much your investment has and will continue to impact our students!
We had a grand adventure at Biltmore Estates, but the preparation for our trip began many months ago! Over the last several months, we have incorporated the legacy of Biltmore into our academic lessons through our teaching of short stories, exploration of history, and lessons related the the changing traditions and cultures over time. We have also incorporated the importance of learning through experience and exploration as part of our anticipation for our Biltmore trip.
Your contribution extends itself beyond our academic classrooms. Through your support, our students have had an experience with memories that will last forever! Many of our students do not have the opportunity to learn through discovery and adventure, or they do not have the resources to invest in these learning opportunities. Their travel experiences and exposure to culturally diverse environments might be very limited. Additionally, this field trip provided our students a greater opportunity to interact socially with the world around them.
Our students expressed the following specific impacts through their written reflections regarding the trip (students' spelling corrected for readability when needed):
"I really enjoyed working as a team to learn The Charleston from the 1920s and doing it in front of the house. I can imagine the parties Cornelia had and they danced The Charleston too."
"My favorite was watching the blacksmith at the farm. He has been working metal all his life and his family has been working metal for over 200 years. That is means his family has been working metal since before Civil War!"
"The winter garden was my favorite part because it reminds me of my grandma. She has a deep passion for flowers and I imagine she has a garden like that in heaven."
"My favorite part about Biltmore house was everything! The inside was absolutely breath taking. I felt like I was in a dream."
"My favorite part of the trip was standing on the balcony and watching the beautiful view. I could pretend I was Edith Vanderbilt waking up to that view everyday."
"Now I hope that everyone will gets to go visit the Biltmore House because it's a one in a life time opportunity to see this beautiful house."
"I enjoyed learning how the Vanderbilt's were kind and cared for the people who helped in the house and they helped their community. We learned about how it takes all people to work together for a good life for all of them."
"I asked my mom if we can take my dad there for Father's Day this year. I know he would like the history and the architecture of the building. Plus he is a farmer who would enjoy the farm. It has everything my dad would love to see."
We are so very thankful for your donation, and we would like you to know your generosity has made an impact on our students that will surely last a lifetime!”
With gratitude,
Teacher Hawkins
Bluefish
Funded Jun 22, 2013Dear Donor Friends,
We have used your donation to reach many struggling students in our school. This book speaks to all students who can relate to reading struggles, loss of loved ones, non-traditional family relationships, and struggling peer relationships. Many students in our school have read the novel Bluefish. However, I can best tell you the impact through one student reader. This particular student has struggled with reading throughout his school career. He also has experienced the loss of a parent, and he lives with a grandparent (similar to the situation of the main character in the novel). This student read the book independently as his AR novel. He loved the book so much, he has been seen telling his friends that they must read the book. This student said if he had more books like this, he would read "all day long". One of his previous teachers came to me and asked what book he read recently because she overheard him talking in gym about the book to his friends, excited to share it with other students. Many, many other students have shared this book because of your donation. Thank you so much for providing this opportunity for our students. We will continue to use this novel with our high risk students for years to come!”
With gratitude,
Teacher Hawkins
My 26
Funded Feb 25, 2013We thank you so much for your donation! Through your support, students involved in our "My 26" project have been successful in completing 26 acts of kindness in honor of those lost at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Kindness projects that were developed included our paper recycling program, animal shelter donation, coat drive, school spirit team, Easter Egg hunt for our special needs classroom, book drive, and other kindness projects. This long-term project has served to inspire many of our students to continue to make their impact on our school, community, and world.
I'd like to share with you one exceptional story. We recently enrolled a new students, who was quickly swept into our Builders Club group by others in the 8th grade. This student came to use with burdens moving to a new town, stressful home life, and previous difficulty finding friends. After several weeks of school, the student told our Builders Club group in a morning meeting that ours is the kindest school she had ever been attended. She said she "never know a school would help her be a better person".
Thank you for helping us make better people!!! Thanks for helping us fight every darkness with light!”
With gratitude,
Teacher Hawkins