Past projects 76
Classroom Creation Supplies
Funded Sep 18, 2024Thank you so much for purchasing basic supplies like markers, tape, scissors, erasers etc. We are very grateful that you gave these things to us. We write daily in both English and Spanish.
We also do occassional art activities that require the supplies you provided us. One art activity that we did before the winter break is making angels out of doilies. One of our volunteers had extra doilies and she led the activity. The student enjoyed it very much and we used our markers to decorate them. They loved using the special gold and silver markers that we got from you.
Thank you so much for your generosity.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Garcia
This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose Community & an Anonymous Partner and 4 other donors.Learning by Building Landforms
Funded Jul 14, 2024Thank you for giving us legos to build landforms with. We just started school and are oficially starting our science unit about Changing Landforms next week.
However, this week we started learning about different landforms and what they look like. As part of that learning we read and watched a video about landforms. We then built landforms that we rememebered with the legos. Some of my students have legos at home. Other students do not. They were all very excited about playing with the legos. The first time they had trouble making landforms. The second time we played with them some of them had landforms but could not identify all of them. We are going to continue working with the legos a few more times and after that I will give them the task of drawing and labeling their landform.
The Changing Landforms science unit is about erosion and how different natural forces result in slow and rapid changes in our environment. As part of this unit students explore how water affects different materials such as chalk and kinetic sand. We also show erosion by taking away pompoms from a mountain made of them. I'm going to try and use legos to model slow and rapid erosion as well since they need to realize that the material that landforms are made of also affects how they erode and how long it takes.
Legos are a fun way to show our learning. We are having our first Science Fair this year in our school and I will ask a group to make a display about Changing Landforms and talk about it during our science fair.
Thank you for your generosity.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Garcia
Science Notebooks and Story Journals
Funded Jun 13, 2024Thank you for donating Science Notebooks and Story Journals to our classroom. We have just started the first week of school and are already using both.
We are a Spanish Bilingual Second Grade Classroom and we are writing in both languages. We are writing in English after we do our Social Emotional Lessons. We are focusing on Growth Mindset and identifying what we are good at and how we improve on what we know. In Spanish we are practicing our sentence writing by retelling events that have occured this week or things we like to do in school. Some students are still learning how to write and need a lot of help. Luckily I have a great volunteer that helps me and between the two of us are able to get everyone to write something. My focus for the next few weeks is to increase the amoutn of writing that they are producing and have them put Capitals, periods, spacing and improve letter formation.
In Science we are learning about what science is and how to draw scientifically. We have read the book Ada Twist, Scientist and we drew pictures to show what scientists do from what we saw in the book. We then reviewed the ABC's of scientific Drawing. Accurate, Big, Colorful, Detailed and Explained and we went outside to our garden yard to draw flowers. We then back into the classroom to color them.
Thank you for helping us improve our skills by providing us with the writing notebooks we need. We can't wait to show our parents.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Garcia
This classroom project was brought to life by Visa Foundation.Learning About Volume and Weight
Funded May 9, 2023Today we did our first lesson on measuring volume. Since I am now in 2nd grade and the 3rd grade class has a substitute because we couldn't find a teacher, I did the lesson with both classes. We went outside in our garden yard to do the exploration. We divided the students into 4 groups. We had about 8 students in each group. The students had not participated in measuring volume before so I had to do a quick introduction to remind them that we can measure time, lenght, width etc. I then told them that we would be measuring the capacity of liquid that a container can have. We then divided and explored how much liquid could fit in a mystery container that had no lines for measuring. They were able to explore different containers and moving water from one container to the other. The lesson was a short one since it was meant to be an introduction. I am giving the susbtitute some follow up activities so that she can do them with the 3rd graders next week. I am doing some follow up with the second graders as well. We will be estimating and measuring liquid in another mystery container. We will then do some comparisons and talk about what units are best to use to measure different containers. In January we will do a similar lesson with weight.
Thank you for your donation.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Garcia
This classroom project was brought to life by SONIC Foundation and 4 other donors.We Are Writers
Funded Aug 2, 2023Thank you so much for providing us a way to show off our work. We have two bulletin boards that have our writing in our classroom. One bulletin board had our first stories and is going to show off our best work each month. The other bulletin board currently has a creative writing piece about the Superhero we want to be. We wrote about our Superhero name, our super powers and the vehicle we would drive if we were a Superhero. The second bulletin board will have a seasonal writing or art sample that will change every other week. Our parents love seeing our work and we are also proud to show it off to other students and teachers. We are currently working on more writing to add to our bulletin board. We love seeing our work up there.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Garcia
This classroom project was brought to life by Kleenex and one other donor.Science and Social Studies Books
Funded Aug 13, 2023Thank you for giving us new library books for our Spanish Library. We love learning about Science and Social Studies. Right now only 7 student are able to read the books on their own. We shop for books each week. Student choose 10 books in Spanish. We try to balance our books so that we have both fiction and non fiction books. Students love to learn about space, the human body, plants and animals. Some students also enjoy learning about the flag or looking at books with maps. Having a wide variety of books helps us find books that we like and that will teach us many new things. We also take one book home each day to read with someone. Our parents love learning about science with us. Next week we will begin our reading buddies program. We read to Kindergarten students and perhaps we will share some of our new books.
Thank you for your help in improving our library and our reading ability.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Garcia
Chapter Books and Graphic Novels
Funded Aug 13, 2023Our second grade classroom has a variety of readers and learners. We have 6 students who are reading at grade level or above and it is imperative for me to provide the right books for them so that they will stay engaged in reading. I chose books that I found interesting as a child and many of them have now been made into Graphic Novels. The "I Survived" books are one of them. The Graphic novels make the books more interesting and help students with comprehension because they include so many more pictures than the regular Chapter books. I also have the regular chapter books since only 4 of the titles have been made into Graphic Novels. I'm hoping that once the students are hooked on the Graphic Novels they will also want to read the chapter books. Other books that I really enjoyed were the "Choose Your Own Ending books." I picked various book titles that are related to movies, games, cartoons and book series that students enjoy. Having chapter books and graphic novels allows my higher readers to be challenged and entertained. I am especially thinking of two boys who are very bright but can become distracting if they are unchallenged or uniterested in what we are doing. Keeping everyone learning means addressing the needs of every learner. I willl also start reading some of the book outloud in order for the other two-thirds of my class to have access to the books. Later on we will be working with partner and the higer readers can share their books with the lower readers. Having a variety of books in our library allows me to help students to find the best reading material for them so that they can focus and grow their reading skills. Thank you for purchasing chapter books and graphic novels for our classroom.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Garcia
Sturdy Shelves for Second Grade
Funded Sep 18, 2023Our shelves arrived last week and I spent two days after school building them. They are now around our classroom and they look great. I have began organizing the books in bins on each shelf by topic. I have divided the shelves so that it is clear to students if the books are fiction or non-fiction. In Second grade students tend not to understand the difference and they prefer stories because they are fun and familiar to them. Fiction books are also easier to understand because they follow the same story structure. I want to encourage the students to pick books that have science, math or social studies topics so that they can continue learning about these subjects. Choosing books with different structures will also challenge them to check for understanding and develop vocabulary that is precise and more advanced. The book shelves allow me to teach students to vary the selection of books, to learn to find topics that interest them and to find out what they enjoy reading. We will be talking about why we read and I will introduce the purposes of reading for entertainment, learning information and hearing others opinions. We will then begin to vary our book selection. Students who are close to reading at level will start because they have the whole library to select from. Slowly I will introduce the concepts to the students who are not reading or who are low in reading so they can understand how their choice of book helps them become better readers. An organized classroom library is such a pleasure and necesity for young learners who are not used to searching for books. Thank you so much for your donation of classroom shelves.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Garcia
Notebook Needs
Funded Jul 18, 2023Thank you for providing us with notebooks and math journals so that we can practice our basic skills. We write everyday in our notebooks. We have been in school for a little longer than a month so far. When we started most students wrote one or two sentences and then stopped. Some had illegible work. We wrote everyday after our behavior lessons to respond to a prompt about the lesson. We also wrote personal narratives. We typed several personal stories using Google Classroom and w placed those outside in our bulletin board to see. Now many students are writing a full page or more in their notebooks.
We are just starting to us our math journals. The journals have daily math problems in English. They cover every topic in 3rd grade and some of the problems are very challenging. We do the math whole group as a warm up before our math lessons. I really like having the notebooks for three reasons. First, students who are high in math are challenged and get a preview of what math we will be doing later. Second, students who are low in math get to review concepts that we have learned in a less stressful environment because anyone can answer and we do the work together. Finally, students learn math vocabulary and practice their English writing skills as well. Many of the problems require explanations of how the answer was obtained. Students learn that getting the answer is not enough. They need to be able to explain their thinking.
Thank you so much for your support. Our classroom is learning many valuable skills using the products you purchased for us.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Garcia
This classroom project was brought to life by Kleenex and 5 other donors.More Books
Funded Apr 7, 2023Thank you for purchasing new books for our classroom library. I chose the books by asking students what books they wanted to see in our Spanish section. Some students chose books that they had seen in English in the school library. Others didn't know what to pick but showed me the ones they liked and asked for books like those. The books I chose were fiction books mostly and at second grade and third grade reading levels. When the books arrived I labeled bins and arranged them as part of our classroom library. The students browse the books in our classroom library weekly and choose the books that they want to read for the week. I received the books towards the end of the last school year and the students were ecstatic to read them.
This school year students are learning to find the books that they want but the ones purchased through your donation are still a big hit. Especially for my boys who do not like to read much fiction, the graphic novels about "The Bad Guys" and the "I survived" books are a big hit. I used to love the I survived books as a child and I love them now more because they teach a little history along with a good story. I have one child who has read all of them already and we are only a month into the school year. I also purchased some Katie Woo books in Spanish because my girls love those kind of stories and I wanted to diversify the characters they were seeing in their books. Of course we also got some books about cats and dogs because those are our favorite pets. Having the right book to read makes a big difference in the lives of our children. Thank you.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Garcia
This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose Community and 4 other donors.