Past projects 3
Class Set of Wonder by RJ Palacio
Funded Jan 4, 2019I want to thank you for donating Wonder, by RJ Palacio to my third grade classroom. Typically Wonder is a fourth to fifth grade level book, however the message of the story is so relevant to this age group, I wanted to share this story with my students. Since receiving the novel and beginning the study my students are making personal connections to this story every time we read. Being a military impacted school, my students will have many "first days" of school, and encounter many scenarios of bullying. They have already made this connection to the story, they love sharing their own personal stories that are similar to Auggies. I can also see a growth in their empathy towards each other after reading only a few sections. In addition to all these wonderful things, this story is also a challenging read, and they have said they feel really great that they are able to do a novel study on a book that is above their own grade level. Its really teaching them they can do anything!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Spence
Getting Comfy and Cozy with Flexible Seating
Funded Feb 21, 2018Thank you very much for helping fund our Flexible seating project. My students are coming into my room excited to learn and even more excited to pick their seat for the week. There are five choices now thanks to your generous donations. Students can choose to sit on a yoga ball, a floor seat with a work tray, a taller stool or on a pillow. Students are learning which option is best for them and they are choosing spots where they will learn the best each day.
Since items were coming throughout the month, each time we got something new, the kids were extremely excited. They would ask, can we sit there today? We also used this as a teaching lesson too on sharing and taking turns. Everybody got a chance to try out each different seating options before a student could sit there again. My students did a great job with this and were very respectful to their classmates.
Our next step in our classroom now is to think about technology with a program called Osmo. We have 13 iPads in our room and it is my hope to be able to have one for each student eventually. This would also give more kids access to all the wonderful apps and programs that are being created for their learning and success.
Thank you again for being so generous!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Spence
This classroom project was brought to life by Craig Newmark Philanthropies and one other donor.An Apple Today Helps In All Kinds of Ways!
Funded Oct 13, 2017Thanks to your generous donation we are able to do so may awesome things in our room! In language arts we use the pads for two main things lexia core 5 and achieve 3000. Lexia core 5 is an awesome program that focuses on grammar, fluency, and vocabulary. Prior to the iPads in our room some students would only get to do Lexia every other week, now every student gets at least 20 minutes of lexia a week, this is so awesome because I can already see an improvement in their grammar, but they also love doing lexia. We can also assure that students are able to do one article a week on achieve 3000. Achieve 3000 is a great reading program were the students read scholarly articles based on their reading level and respond to questions. We have also been using them in math, in third grade we really focus on learning multiplication, and there are tons of multiplication games on the app store! In science we've been using them to learn how to research, we've learned what sites are reliable and how to use google. These iPads are definitely getting good use, and I am so appreciative of this donation.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Spence