Past projects 8
Get Your Creative Juices Flowing!!
Funded Mar 9, 2016We are so thankful for your kindness and generosity with you donation to my classroom. The new materials for our art center are so much fun to use and the students are enjoying using them. They are learning a lot of wonderful skills with these art projects.
During art the students love being able to manipulate all the bright colored playdough to learn to make shapes and letters. They are being very creative with the playdough as well making birthday cakes, pizza and smiley faces. The paint containers and holder allow us to have 10 different paint colors available for use. These containers are wonderful for our little hands and are keeping things from getting too messy when a container spills. Along with using paint, the Rolling sponges are a wonderful and fun addition to our art center. The students get to make all sorts of shapes and designs with these sponges. All of these art activities are helping us work on the students being creative, but also their fine motor skills.
Not only is the puffy paint and glitter glue helping to add more designs to our beautiful works of art it is helping us to use our hands. In order for the paint and glue to come out we have to squeeze the bottles. Squeezing tubes is important for us and helps us to strengthen our hands. The stickers and markers are fun to play and create with. We use stickers on many projects especially when they go along with the theme of our project. We love using them!
All of these art activities are helping us work on the students being creative, but also their fine motor skills. So again, thank you so much for your generosity! We are enjoying learning and having fun while using the materials that were part of your donation.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Chauvette
Learning Literacy While Having Fun
Funded Dec 18, 2015We are so thankful for your kindness and generosity with you donation to my classroom. The new materials for learning literacy during our circle time as well as in work sessions are so much fun to use and the students are enjoying using them. They are learning a lot of wonderful skills with these hands on materials.
During circle time we are loving the new puppets and felt pieces that go along with books and songs. The students are able to listen to the stories while seeing them come to life with the puppets and pieces. We also are able to get the students involved in telling the story by coming up and choosing the correct piece of the story. For example with "Give a Pig a Pancake" the students are able to follow along with the book by choosing the felt piece that comes next. They pick the piece and hand it to the pig puppet. We have done this with several of the new stories including; "The Hungry Caterpillar", If You Give a Moose a Muffin", "Brown Bear", and "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom".
Besides using these wonderful stories in circle time we are able to carry them over into our work sessions where the students love being able to manipulate all the pieces themselves. This carry over allows them to retell the stories at their own pace. We are also able to observe if they understand the story, the characters and the sequence of how stories go. These have added a lot of fun learning into our work sessions. Some of the students are even making up their own stories using the pieces which shows their creativity!
Lastly, the Barefoot Book series with CD's has been another wonderful addition to our circle time. These books are so colorful and the songs are so much fun. We love singing along and doing fingerplays. The CD's also contain a short video that brings the story to life. The students love this aspect as well!
Again, thank you so much for your generosity! We are enjoying learning and having fun while using the materials that were part of your donation.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Chauvette
ABC Come Learn With Me!
Funded Dec 16, 2015We are so thankful for your kindness and generosity with you donation to my classroom. The new materials for learning our ABC's and literacy skills are so much fun to use and the students are enjoying using them. They are learning a lot of wonderful skills with these hands on materials.
During work sessions the students love being able to use their hands while putting pegs into lower case letters. While they do this they are hearing and saying the letter, thus learning the name of letters. The Feely Fabric Letters are another great hands on activity the kids love. They get to reach into the bag, pull out a letter, feel the different textures then say the name of the letter. Besides naming the letters we work on saying the letter sound as well, plus having different textures helps students with sensory issues touch new materials. The puzzles in Early Group Classifications has helped many students learn what items go together, for example, matching a pen to the picture of a pencil. The other puzzles in this group is putting three items together, for example finding the three foods or animals and putting them together. This is helping the students learn categories and matching.
Our circle time has been enhanced by the new ABC Flipchart and CD. We are now focusing on a letter of the week and listening to a fun rhyming song about that letter. The kids love hearing the music and learning the song. Several of them have begun singing along to the songs as we go. So far we have done 3 letters and are eager to hear more! Besides helping us with out ABC's, there is a lot of good rhyming in the songs which is another important skill for us. From there we can incorporate the Picture Rhyming game and Nursery Rhymes into our work areas.
Again, thank you so much for your generosity! We are enjoying learning and having fun while using the materials that were part of your donation.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Chauvette
This classroom project was brought to life by Google.org and 4 other donors.Learning Literacy and Math While Having Fun
Funded Dec 4, 2015We are so thankful for your kindness and generosity with you donation to my classroom. The new materials for learning ABC's, numbers, sorting, rhyming, and other math skills are so much fun to use and the students are enjoying using them. They are learning a lot of wonderful skills with these hands on materials.
During work sessions the students love being able to manipulate playdough when using the Learn to Count, Math Mats. This hands on activity allows them to work on fine motor skills as well as number recognition and counting skills. The Ready-To-Go Learning packs have a large variety of activities focused on different skills, (rhyming, sorting, categorizing, ABC's, sequencing). Again these are hands on activities that allow the students to learn important pre-reading skills while manipulating the materials in a fun way. Like the Ready-To-Go packs, the Early Math Activity Center is filled with counting, sorting and other math skills that are helping the students learn early math concepts.
Lastly, the Circle Time Learning Center has been a wonderful addition to our circle time. It allows us to focus on many different skills all in one convenient and organized way. We are learning calendar skills (days of the week, months of the year), weather skills, as well as being able to have a letter and number of the day. Here the students work on being independent by following directions and completing a section of the center. This learning center also is very visual and hands on so the students are actively participating in circle time.
Again, thank you so much for your generosity! We are enjoying learning and having fun while using the materials that were part of your donation.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Chauvette
This classroom project was brought to life by Google.org and 3 other donors.Come Join Us for Circle Time!
Funded Nov 12, 2015We are so thankful for your kindness and generosity with you donation to my classroom. The seat cushions and Velcro have come in handy already and changed how circle time runs. We have seen a tremendous change in how the students listen, follow directions, and interact due to the wonderful materials we received because of your donation.
During circle time the students love having their own spot to sit on. We put the students pictures on them so they can learn to identify their seat from the others. They come quickly to circle and look for their cushion. The students have become more independent in this skill and can find their seats and sit by themselves. During circle they are staying in their spots on the cushions, allowing them to pay attention more, listen and participate.
The Velcro is coming in handy for making schedules, file folder games as well as for use during circle times (making song visuals and calendar time). Being able to make these items is important for the students as they are learning to be more independent by following a schedule. The students also are visual and hands on learners and having folder games and song pieces allows them to participate in activities.
Again, thank you so much for your generosity! We are enjoying learning and having fun while using the materials that were part of your donation.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Chauvette
Having Fun With Sensory Play
Funded Apr 30, 2015Thank you so much for your generous donation to our classroom. My students are Autistic preschoolers and have many sensory issues. The sensory play activities are perfect for helping the students work through some of their issues with textures. While the students are mainly non-verbal, they were excited to use the sensory materials and several of them would request them during the day. My paraprofessionals were excited as well to have new sensory materials they could use in their work areas. Especially since many of the items included searching for the alphabet, numbers and shapes while working on sensory issues.
The students and teachers in the classroom are using these materials in different ways. Sometimes the students use them during play time where they explore with their hands the different textures of the materials. They worked on fine motor skills of scooping and pouring using the materials. In the small work areas the materials were used to have students search for a letter or number while digging in the buckets. This helped with not only sensory issues but academic skills.
The learning of my students definitely was boosted and enhanced. They had a variety of textures to explore as well as materials of different sizes and shapes. Many of the students love playing with sand or beans, but these materials add a different texture and sensory input that they also benefit from. Overall, these materials were a hit and we can't wait to use them again next school year. The new students coming into my class will love using them as much as we did this year!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Chauvette
Colors, Shapes, Numbers, Letters Oh My!
Funded Apr 30, 2015Thank you very much for the generous donation of materials and activities for us to use. The materials are wonderful and have been helping the students work on their letter, number, shape and color identification as well as rhyming skills. The students and para-educators were so excited to have new activities to use in work sessions. The materials are hands on and the students are able to manipulate the objects which is an important way to teach Autistic students.
During our work sessions the students have been using the materials to sort and identify colors, shapes, numbers and letters. They use the number boxes to count objects to 5 and recognize the numbers 1-5. The color and shape boxes are used for the students to sort the objects by color or shape as well as verbalize the names of each. Several of the students use the ABC cards to identify the letter names as well as objects that begin with each letter. When using the rhyming puzzles the students work on matching the rhyming pictures.
This project and materials have boosted my students learning by giving them new hands on activities to use. Many of the activities have also helped the students be independent when working because they are fun and the students are engaged, yet the activities work on many skills. I look forward to using these materials from year to year with the same wonderful results!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Chauvette
Music, Music, Music, We Love Music
Funded Apr 30, 2015Thank you so much for your donation to my classroom. The students and staff love the new music supplies as well as the much needed CD player. My Autistic preschoolers love listening to music and many have to work on imitation skills. During circle time is where we work a lot of this skill. Having the music resources available to use made this possible.
In my classroom we do about 2-3 circle times a day each with different songs, fingerplays, books and movement activities. We were using old CD players or an old laptop computer that would make many of our Cd's skip. The class was in desperate need of a new CD player and your donation gave us this item! Now when we listen to our songs they no longer skip and I am able adjust the volume better as well as change Cd's easier and quicker. The new books and felt board/felt glove have been wonderful in helping me bring books and stories to life. I can use pictures and place them on the felt board or glove to tell the story or act out the books we are listening to.
In the time since we had the new CD player and other resources, I saw a big increase in student imitation skills. It was not unusual for me to see at least 7 out of the 9 students imitating movements with me during our favorite songs. What a wonderful sight to see! I am excited to use the new materials again next year!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Chauvette