Past projects 9
Literacy Skills for All!
Funded Aug 8, 2024I want to express my heartfelt gratitude for your generous donation of supplies for our 2nd grade classroom. Your thoughtful contribution of a document camera, headphones, book bins, phonics games, books, dry erase boards, Play-Doh toys, flashlights, and blank books have a tremendous impact on my students' learning experience. These items create a more engaging and dynamic environment for my young learners, and I am so excited to see the joy and excitement they will bring to our classroom throughout this school year.
The students will benefit immensely from these resources. The document camera allows me to share books, student work, and instructional materials with the entire class, making lessons more interactive and accessible. The new headphones help create focused learning experiences, whether students are listening to audiobooks or engaging in digital learning activities. The book bins keep our classroom library organized, encouraging a love for reading, while the phonics games and books support our literacy goals, helping students build foundational reading skills in a fun and engaging way.
The dry erase boards are perfect for interactive lessons, allowing students to practice math problems and spelling words, while the Play-Doh toys will serve as a creative outlet during indoor recess and art activities. The flashlights will turn reading into an adventure, making our "reading in the dark" days even more exciting, and the blank books will inspire my students to become budding authors, giving them a space to write and illustrate their own stories. Your support means the world to us, and I can't thank you enough for investing in our classroom and helping to create a positive and inspiring learning environment for my students.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Ruecker
This classroom project was brought to life by Governor Jared Polis.Books and Comfort
Funded Sep 3, 2023Thank you for believing in our class! We are loving the new additions to our classroom. The photos don't do it justice. The new materials have had made a tremendous impact on our classroom. The atmosphere has greatly improved and the students are eager to learn!
The new carpet has become the most desired place to learn and the heart of our classroom. The circle spots on it are much bigger than our previous carpet spots. The students love having the extra space for our growing bodies and room for our learning materials. We start and end each day at the carpet. It has become more than just a spot to learn. It is now a spot to share our thoughts, our worries, our celebrations, and build relationships.
With the addition of the new black bins now all students have their very own learning box. This is a spot for them to keep all their wonderful work, the books they love to read, and journals. The new books have been an huge asset for some very eager readers. The lower level readers have supported in accelerating their reading growth. These books provided students with opportunities to practice literacy skills that lead them toward grade level text.
Thank you for believing in our class. We appreciate you!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Ruecker
This classroom project was brought to life by Colorado Department of Education.Our Little Genius Bar
Funded Dec 28, 2019Happy New Year! Thank you so much for supporting our classroom project. The students will be so excited to hear about it next week. I truly appreciate your generosity and investment in the lives of my students. You help provide new learning opportunities for our classroom. I promise we won’t let you down. Look forward to sharing our experiences and learning growth with you.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Ruecker
This classroom project was brought to life by An anonymous classroom supporter and 5 other donors.Tidying Up With Neutrals
Funded Jul 28, 2019We did it! Thanks to your support our classroom library has been going through a neutral makeover. No longer are books falling off the shelves, getting lost in oversized buckets, being returned to the wrong location, slipping inside each other, or being overlooked. The sleek black book buckets have almost completely replace the rainbow-colored buckets and made book shopping for our class an easy experience.
Our classroom library is still a work in progress. In the past the prescribed trend was to level your books from letters A to Z. The letters of the alphabet being used to indicate the reading level of the student and the complexity of the book. A level A text being the simplest and a level Z text being the most difficult. This leveling often resulted in limiting students book selection, caused frustration, and put students in a box. With our makeover I have haded the reigns over to the students. They are deciding on how to organize our library. The first step the decided on was to sort fiction and nonfiction. From there they are continuing to come up with categories and labeling the books. I've never had a class take ownership of our classroom library in this way before and they are loving it!
Thank you again for helping this dream become reality!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Ruecker
This classroom project was brought to life by The Ned and Nathalie Fund and one other donor.Sit With Us!
Funded Feb 18, 2019Our adventure with flexible seating continues! Thank you for taking this journey with us. It has been a huge learning process for us as a class. We've explored and experimented with what type of learner we each are and which seating preference works best. The new seating options to our classroom has really motivated some of our more reluctant learners. They really enjoy being able to wiggle around on the balls.
There was so much excitement, and honestly a little confusion, when the new seats arrived. The ball stool and floor desks were something completely new to the class. Everyone wanted to try them out! We have such a helpful class, everyone worked together to assemble the stools, inflate the balls, and build the directors chairs. Several students especially enjoyed following the step-by-step directions for assembly and connected it to their experiences constructing with legos. We may have inadvertently inspired some future carpenters!
Over the course of few weeks we made sure that everyone in our class had a chance to try out all the new seating options. By far the most popular seating choices are the directors chairs, and floor desks. Each morning students arrive and select their seating choice for the day, but know that if they need they can swap with another student. We rotate each day with who gets first selection. At first I thought we would have some disagreements over seat choice, but we haven't! Each student knows they are unique to our class and they really appreciate that the seating options can match their individual learning styles.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Ruecker
This classroom project was brought to life by The Ned and Nathalie Fund and 6 other donors.I Think You’re in My Seat.
Funded Jul 17, 2018We have just completed our first quarter of the school year. Our adventure with flexible seating options has begun and so far is a smashing success! Thanks to your support our classroom has experienced a seating makeover that has generated a lot of excitement from students and staff members throughout the school.
In our very diverse class no two learners are the same, so why should the expectoration that we have to all sit the same. It has been wonderful watching students experiment with seating options and deciding which is the best option for them to utilize and focus on their learning. We began the school year discussing how to safely use our new seating options and establishing guidelines for each option. The first few weeks students were encouraged to try out all options and find the best fit. The most popular seating choices have been the exercise balls and the adjustable orange stool. One student described her preferred seating option as the exercise ball because, "it gives me freedom to wobble and gently bounce, without making noise." Another student shared this about the tall orange stool. "I like the stool by the window because I can use the ledge to write on and get inspiration for stories by what I see outside."
Flexible seating has changed our learning environment in so many beneficial ways, I can't help but wonder what took me so long to try it out! It has been an amazing project. The engagement and focus on learning has greatly increased when compared to years past and students seem happier. A pleasant surprise was how large our classroom space feels. Flexible seating cut out on the required amount of furniture and has really opened up space in our classroom. Space for students to focus. Space for students to carve out for themselves. Space where education can thrive. From the bottom of my heart, I sincerely thank you for your support and belief in revolutionizing classroom learning environments.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Ruecker
Hello iPad. Hello Future.
Funded Feb 11, 2018Wonderful people like you have made such an impact on our classroom. We have been busy these last few months experimenting and utilizing our iPad! Having just one iPad has increased the engagement in lessons, generated excitement from my more reluctant learners, and even inspired other staff members to modernize their own teaching methods. In our classroom the students and I have utilized the iPad for a plethora of purposes.
I have been busy working with one of our district educational technology coaches weekly to learn some pretty amazing things that can be done with an iPad in the classroom. The most impactful aspect has been how portable the iPad is and how it has allowed me to be more mobile and present around the classroom. No longer do I feel stuck in the front of the class next to the smart board to teach lessons. Using a program called Reflector I am able to cast, and manipulate my lessons from the iPad to the smart board from anywhere in the classroom. It also gives the abilities for students to model their thinking from anywhere in the classroom. This has been such a powerful tool for many students who are timid to stand up in front of a whole group. They have been building confidence in sharing their thinking from the security of their desk or whatever location in the room they feel most successful. I look forward to continuing my own professional learning in the area of technology so that I can further support students.
The most exciting aspect of this project is to see the enthusiasm that the children have. My students have been extremely busy making Reader's Theater iMovies, historical fiction book trailers, publishing narrative stories, and using apps for additional math and reading support. The curriculum we use for math and interventions all have digital resources and apps that enhance and support students on the learning path. The iPad has increased motivation in many students who when faced with struggles during whole group instruction get frustrated easily.
I truly appreciate and honor each and every person that has made this project possible. On behalf of the 24 amazing humans in Room 29, I say, "Thank you!"”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Ruecker
This classroom project was brought to life by The Ned Harding and Nathalie Smith Fund and 8 other donors.Tigers and Foxes, Oh My!
Funded Jul 17, 2017First, let me tell you how grateful our class is for wonderful individuals like you! Thanks to your generous donation, our classroom has come to life with amazing works of fiction.
We started our school year with our first unit of study, The Heart of the Story, where we began our exploration into interpreting characters. Our whole class fell in love with the book Tiger Rising, and the characters Rob and Sistine. We rose to the challenges that 4th grade brings and really began to move away from literal interpretations of characters towards inferential interpretations. I saw a tremendous amount of pride in my students as they cherished this piece of literature knowing that this book was theirs FOREVER! As a result the students really took ownership of their learning.
If you were to glance at any one of our copies you would see a book that has been well loved; our books are filled with sticky notes that contain connections, interpretations, reactions and thoughts. Many students took pride as they scribed their names on the inside cover using their favorite colored marker. By the end of the unit we had several books with bent pages and even a few with milk spill from reading while eating breakfast. We really did the thinking and learning the author was asking us as readers to do.
My goal as an educator is instill a love of learning with each student that graces my classroom. With how closely we each engaged with Tiger Rising, Rob and Sistine continue to live with us. We even wrote our own narrative stories where we created amazing characters based the rich examples we had from the text. Students continue to reference their favorite part of the book as our learning has focused on review writing. Fourteen students in my classroom composed book reviews claiming that Tiger Rising is "the best book ever!"
Can't wait until our next fiction reading unit of study and the students get their next amazing book, Number the Stars by Lois Lowry! Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
With sincere thanks,
Kjrsten Ruecker”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Ruecker
This classroom project was brought to life by Sergey Brin Family Foundation and 7 other donors.Can My Class Break Out?
Funded Mar 31, 2017First, let me tell you how grateful I am for wonderful individuals like you!
The breakout boxes have been the talk of the school. My students were able to enjoy 3 different breakout scenarios. Our first attempt was used as an assessment at the culmination of our Electricity and Magnetism unit. Unfortunately we struggled to work together and did not successfully complete all the challenges. However, we did learn a lot about problem solving, ourselves as leaders, negotiating, reflecting and working together.
My students wanted to share the great fun and learning opportunity with the whole school. They decided that at our school's Family Fun Feast, an after school community event, that they would coordinate and run their own breakout room. We had such great participation. Parents and students K-12 were able to experience the challenge of working together, while having a great time.
Our final attempt as a class was on the last day of school. Locked in the box was a piece of paper with each students' name and the name of their next years 5th grade teacher. We had great success in all the challenges! We broke out of the box and all the students were beyond excited to find out their next years teacher.
Can't wait to continue the wonderful experience with my next years group of 4th Graders. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Ruecker