Past projects 2
Enhancing Our Learning
Funded Sep 29, 2022I would like to begin by saying thank you for your generous donation. Your kind donation has allowed me to receive gift cards towards the Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT) website. The TPT gift cards provided by Donors Choose has made a wonderful difference in my classroom, as I have been able to purchase extra resources to help enrich our current reading and math curriculum. The best thing about having the Teachers Pay Teachers gift cards is that I don't have to wait a long time to receive the materials; I go on to the website and with a click am able to receive the product right away.
The TPT gift cards have been an asset in allowing me to create an "I'm Done" work station and centers that are both multi-sensory and easily adaptable to what we are learning in the classroom. The "I'm Done" station and centers are located in small bins allowing the children to take the work to their tables and work in groups or independently once they have completed their classwork. The "I'm Done" work and centers reinforce concepts and skills learned. Aside from selecting a card and working on "I'm Done" activities, the other exciting part is the math and reading centers.
Some examples of reading or phonetic centers include, but are not limited to "Sentence Match," a center where the child or children read the sentence and match the correct picture to the sentence.
Along with the "I'm Done" and centers, I was also able to purchase some math games with the TPT gift cards. One really fun math game purchased on TPT is "KAPOW." The children really enjoy the math game because as they are working to become fluent in adding and subtracting. They are also learning that it is about building a class community and having fun. The game has children take turns getting an addition or subtraction number sentence from a pile in the middle. If the child has the sum or difference for the addition or subtraction sentence, they turn the card over; the student who has all the cards turned over wins. However, if a child gets the "KAPOW" card, all players have to switch seats. Which means, he or she gets the other players cards. It is exciting to see how much they encourage each other, how much they are learning, and how much fun they are having while learning. For giving me the ability to purchase different resources and activities on Teachers Pay Teachers, I am truly thankful.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Byrnes
This classroom project was brought to life by An Anonymous Classroom Supporter.Reading Successfully At All Levels
Funded Aug 25, 2016I would like to begin by saying thank you for your kind generosity. Having a leveled library has allowed me to place children with the correct book and has also helped to guide me in properly leveling some of the books we already have in class.
In school we use reciprocal teaching for both reading and math. Reciprocal teaching helps children take ownership of their learning, while at the same time helping others in small groups. With reciprocal teaching, students can increase their reading comprehension, especially when it comes to reading skills such as summarizing, predicting, clarifying, and questioning. Summarizing allows children to note what happened in the story by thinking of sequence of events and retelling the story in their own words. When predicting, children look at the title and cover of the book, they then try to predict what they think the story will be about, based on what they know and see. Children continue to predict as they read and later confirm whether or not their prediction is correct. In questioning and clarifying, children ask themselves and/or others, questions about the story read and make necessary clarifications based on the story. Having a variety of books in class, allows us to pick new titles to apply the competencies mentioned above; this in turn helps the children build their reading comprehension. The leveled library also enables the children to work together on the skills learned. What I find interesting is seeing and hearing the children model and use the skills they have learned to discuss the new books with each other.
The children love to read the new books; they tend to gravitate towards books which have already been read because of their familiarity with the text. The wide selection of texts, benefits all the students because they get to select books at their reading level.
The leveled library has been a great asset to our classroom; it has helped to increase the class library and has given the children the opportunity to borrow books over the weekend. Again, thank you so much.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Byrnes
This classroom project was brought to life by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and one other donor.