Past projects 8
6th Graders Exploring Epidemics and Pandemics
Funded Jun 6, 2024It is with deep appreciation that I write this impact letter to each of you for your continued support in helping fund our classroom! I am grateful for your generous donation to support our classroom project for research books about epidemics and pandemics. The books have been essential resources for the students to explore topics and help them understand public health, science, medicine and challenges faced around the world.
The books are both age-appropriate and high-quality, providing students with valuable resources to research various pandemics and epidemics. Last year, when students wrote their research papers, it was challenging due to the lack of age-appropriate resources. However, this year, I've noticed an increase in student interest and engagement as they explore their topics. With access to a wealth of knowledge, they are now able to understand the complex issues that affects our world today.
Having lived through the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the students have seen how quickly a health crisis can occur and affect the society they live in and the world. The students faced many challenges that impacted their growth, including school closures, remote learning, increased stress, and limited social interaction with peers. Thanks to these books, students have been able to participate in the research process, developing their ability to think critically about the science behind the pandemic.
Again, thank you for your generous donation and ongoing support of education. Students now have valuable resources in their hands to further their research skills and enrich their learning experience. We appreciate your kindness.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Guillory
This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose Community and 5 other donors.Teachers Pay Teachers, Take 2
Funded May 7, 2024It is with deep appreciation that I write this impact letter to each of you for your continued support in helping fund my classroom. By providing Teacher Pay Teacher gift cards allows me to purchase additional materials to enhance my current curriculum. These gift cards have been a huge help and I have already purchased activities to strengthen my reading, writing and SEL lessons. I found digital resources where I created slides with daily lessons that included supplies for the day as well as the objective of the lesson. This new resource I purchased was from a teacher called the RETRO teacher trivia presentation. It was a take on a gameshow theme where students learned about me in an interactive way and I learned about them.
When Halloween was approaching, I wanted to find a writing activity to engage my students. There are so many resources on Teachers Pay Teachers, I loved this writing activity from an ELA teacher about selling a haunted house. The students wrote an article taking the role of a real estate agent trying to sell a haunted house. Then they created an illustration of the house through Canva or drew on paper. There are also some great learning posters that I have used about types of figurative language as well as parts of speech. To make these more interactive, I wrote examples on cards and the students need to put them under the correct type of figurative language.
These resources have helped create engaging fun filled activities for my students. It helps enhance their knowledge in reading, writing and games to assess their knowledge on concepts we review. I also purchased activities to supplement and strengthen morphology skills, grammar and writing skills. The students have enjoyed many of the activities and lessons including The Top Ten in the daily bell ringers. This is our starter I do on Tuesdays and one of their favorites.
Again, thank you for your donation and continued support for education. Thank you for the help to get these extra materials from TEACHERS PAY TEACHERS! The resources are a constant reminder of peoples love, generosity, and compassion for education. Thank you for being so generous and allowing our classroom to be a recipient of such kindness.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Guillory
This classroom project was brought to life by General Motors and 4 other donors.Kindness in a Bag
Funded Oct 22, 2023Thank you so much for your generosity to be able to create these kindness bundles for the homeless in Massachusetts. I am so appreciative of all your caring and love that you showed our 6th graders. This community service project would not have happened without your support. There were so many items that we were able to include in the bags including toothbrushes and toothpaste, hand cream, deodorant, tissues, gloves and hats, socks, snacks of all kind and much more. It is so hard to be homeless and not have the everyday items. Though many homeless people are not even able to eat some days and the snacks in these bags will give them something to eat, even it is just for one to two days. Also, I wanted the students to know how it feels to show kindness, and the smile it can bring to someone's face or how they are affecting others lives.
Though when the students saw all the donations we got from all my kind donors, the students wanted to contribute more and so many of the students brought in even more items. With all the donors donations and what the students contributed we were able to make 125 kindness bags. Another of the items that were donated from my donors were drawstring bags. These bags will mean so much to the homeless people as they will now even have something they can carry there belongings in. We also added a bottle of water and a sweet caring note to show them that there are people who care about them and show them that they matter.
Thank you so much for helping me get the materials for the kindness bundles. You truly are amazing and wonderful for all the care you gave to our team of 6th graders. Thank you for making a difference! I truly appreciate YOU!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Guillory
This classroom project was brought to life by The Allstate Foundation and 83 other donors.Engaging Resources for All
Funded May 5, 2023Thank you so much for the donation for the Teacher Pay Teacher gift cards to my wonderful class. The gift cards have been and still are such an huge help. I have used the gift cards to purchase many activities for us to learn and to help strengthen our Reading, Math, Writing, and SEL lessons/skills. I found some resources also to create bulletin boards that focus on the writing process as well as parts of speech and my recent bulletin board I created from another teacher, called "The Best Part of Me". I have been wanting to do this lesson with my students ever since purchasing the picture book. I have included photos, as I just love how the black and white images look great in the bulletin board display.
These resources helped create engaging fun filled activities for the students. It helped enhance their knowledge on math concepts including decimals and fractions by purchasing PowerPoints, Google Slides and Jeopardy games to assess student knowledge on these concepts as well as review for science assessments. I also purchased activities to supplement and to help strengthen reading (morphology skills), grammar, and writing skills. The students have enjoyed many of the activities and lessons including some escape rooms that I recently purchased.
Thank you so much for helping me get these extra materials from TEACHERS PAY TEACHERS! You truly are amazing and wonderful for all the care you gave to my classroom. Thank you for making a difference! I truly appreciate YOU!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Guillory
Cozy Reading Corner
Funded May 9, 2023It is with tremendous gratitude and appreciation that I submit this impact letter to my donors for your kindness and generosity given towards my "Cozy Reading Corner" project. Due to Covid, I had to get rid of my corner including many of the pillows, and the rug, etc. Though then, last year I was able to create a corner, but it was not a corner that my students used often, as it was very small and squished into a corner of the room.
This year I was given a new room and that is when my mind started dreaming and designing a reading corner where my students would want to go to read, work on assignments using the lap desks, or just using it for a space to calm down if feeling stressed or overwhelmed.
The bean bag chairs, pillows, bookcases and lap desks have been a perfect addition to my reading corner, and I do not even have words to describe how much the kids love the space. When they first saw the new boxes, they were so excited to have me open the packages and show them what was inside. Immediately they ran over and sat down on the chairs. Every second they get, they are over there and at times, I must tell them that we need to be at our desks and not sitting on the bean bag chairs. Every reading class, we start with (IR) independent reading. At this time, they are allowed to sit on the bean bag chairs or lean against the pillows while reading their book. Also, when they are working on writing assignments, I will allow them to sit there and type. I have also added a sensory wall to the area, which they love rubbing the texture of the sequenced fabric. Thank you so much for these donations and allowing me to create the space that I have dreamed about for so many years. Moving forward, I hope to add another chair or two so there will be more for seating for the students to enjoy.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Guillory
This classroom project was brought to life by SONIC Foundation and 7 other donors.Reading Together With Novels
Funded May 5, 2022The set of class books have been incredible. Reading independently is a huge challenge for my students. In their regular education reading class they are required to read two AR (accelerated reader) books each term. This is a lot to ask of my students who have reading disabilities. It is very hard for them to read and comprehend what they are reading. The result is when they take the 10 question AR test, the scores are quite low and that affects their self esteem. My original thought was if I could take one book away from them and read one together and break down the book, maybe they would find success. Guess what, that is exactly what is happening, they are earning 90's and 100's on the AR test. To see their faces when they earn that grade would make your heart as full as mine.
Though besides reading the book we have been doing so much more. The month of February is black history month. We have been reading Who was Rosa Parks? She already is an interesting women in our world and my students have been eager to learn more about her. Though I also incorporate vocabulary, how to write a summary, character analysis and reading checks for the chapters. Before reading a chapter, some of the pictures are the students writing vocabulary in their blue books. We go over the words and when they appear in the reading, the students have a clear understanding of the word, which makes comprehension of the text a lot easier. In addition, since the students struggle with comprehension, I also have them do something called, two column notes. On one side they write the characters that appear in the books and on the other side they write main points and details about the chapter.This helps them recall the important parts of the chapters. Two other skills I incorporate with the books that we read is writing a summary of each chapter. The final lesson the students do after reading is a reading check quiz. I feel these are very helpful as it allows me to gain insight into what they are comprehending, but also helps when they take their AR test at the end of the book.
In the class, since COVID has decreased some, I have been able to set up a reading corner again with a rug and pillows. That has become their favorite place when we read as a class as well when they read independently. One of the pictures is of the students with Maui, the school therapy dog while reading the book.
Out of all the books, they have enjoyed the I survived Hurricane Katrina the most. This was a book we read which tied in when the students did a text based writing assignment on hurricanes and their effect on the world. It gave them knowledge and evidence to tie into their paper for writing class.
The book, What Was the Great Depression will be perfect read as in reading class it will tie in well with the book, Esperanza Rising. Anytime I can pre-teach and give them background knowledge for upcoming assignments is helpful as it helps with comprehension skills while they read in their general education classes.
Before having these book sets, I would have to run around to various libraries in order to have enough class copies, but now having class sets of different books has made my job as a teacher a little easier. I truly know that my students are also enjoying the books as they ask each day are we going to read? Thank you so much for providing these sets of book to my classroom. I am truly grateful.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Guillory
This classroom project was brought to life by Dollar General Literacy Foundation and 9 other donors.SEL through Picture Books and Celebrating Differences
Funded Oct 21, 2021Thank you so much for all the books you supplied for our classroom. We are so appreciative of your kindness and the love you have shown to our class by donating funds to be able to purchase all these picture books. The topics are so important to my teacher and the books are great resources that teach us about being different, bullying, having a disability, and accepting who you are. The theme of our school this year is "Be A Voice". We have learned that it means not to be a bystander if someone is being bullied and to stand up for our friends. This was one of the messages we read about in I Choose to Speak Up.
The books are so great that we have been sharing these books with another class that has students with more severe disabilities. Many of the students are nonverbal and have been loving the stories as much as we do. So far, my teacher has read The Juice Box Bully, I'm Not Just A Scribble, My Mouth is a Volcano and she is currently reading The Sandwich Swap. Our vote as of now, is I'm Not Just A Scribble. We liked it the most as we all created a scribble based on how we were feeling. We added sticker eyes and mouth and wrote on the back why we felt that way. My teacher has used the scribble idea and has had us do check-ins by drawing our scribble for that moment. Another book we are excited for her to read is The Potato Chip Champ. We had the chance to look through the book and it looks really good. We hope she reads it to us soon.
We can't thank you enough for all your kindness and generosity.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Guillory
Cricuteer in the Classroom
Funded Sep 9, 2018I cannot even begin to tell you how grateful me and my students are to have received your contribution to the project entitled "Cricuteer in The Classroom:" Thank you. This year I started with the thought that I wanted my students to be more creative than they have been able to be in the past. After having a Cricut of my own, I created this project in order to purchase materials that would assist in my vision. My students have loved the material and have been excited to create beautiful projects to display in and outside the classroom and our team area. We are very grateful for your generous donation to our project! This machine has been a timesaver and makes learning more fun!
I am able to create many new fun and exciting learning materials. I can cut out many shapes and designs for learning games. We have made matching games for vocabulary review and also some games to review for math and science tests. I am also able to use it to decorate our classroom and our 6A team area. Above each of the doorways are motto's that the students see each time they enter their class. One of the mottos we are reinforcing this year is the motto "Be Your Best Self". We have a challenge each term which have included kindness, gratitude and perseverance. Having the Cricut cutting machine has allowed us to create displays on our 6th grade floor revolving around these concepts. It has truly been a chance to foster our creativity. The students enjoyed making a birthday card for one of their teachers and also have made many thank you cards to give to other people in our school community. During Christmas they made 3D ornaments and also glass ornaments that they decorated with vinyl. Not only have they learned how to cut with this machine, they have also come up with their own original ideas and have built them on the cricut design space program, which then hooks up to the Cricut cutting machine.
In the future, there is a plan for them to be able to design their own t-shirts. They are very excited to work on this and have started to design their shirt using the cricut design space program on their laptops. Eventually we will cut them out and they will have their very own shirt that they have created.
I was very worried when I created this project because I did not know if anyone would fund a project for a smaller class as I am a special education teacher and this was for my learning center. However, you showed your commitment to my special education students and made a group of students very happy.
You have truly made a difference in my students and my life. I would again like to thank you for helping fund my project. Not only are they being creative, it is also boosting their technology within the classroom.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Guillory