Improving Math Skills

Funded Jan 1, 2024

Getting a brand new dry erase board, new eraser, and a new divider for every single student in our class may not seem like a big deal to some but it meant a great deal to us. We use these materials every single day in math and they come in handy in other areas as well such as quick writing assignments and some of the games we play. Anytime a student has a one-time use for a piece of paper, our white boards are used instead. With the white boards and erasers that you gave us, we save valuable instructional time, do our small part to save the environment, and have a fun. Who doesn't love using markers?

The dividers, also called privacy screens, you gave are so appreciated! Assessing students, giving them quizzes, and gathering data on what they've learned is critical to helping them improve their learning and development. I use this data to guide my instruction for the class as a whole and more importantly, for each individual student.

My classroom set-up, the physical arrangement of the students' desks, is conducive to group work. All day in every subject they are encouraged and expected to work together and help each other. We have structures and systems in place to make this happen. Our school uses Kagan Strategies to facilitate this practice. Students talk to each other, share ideas, and work on the same assignment in pairs and groups of four.

But when it is time to find out what each student has mastered, and what targeted instruction each individual student may need, we require a different set up. This is where the dividers you gave us come in. Prior to getting the new dividers, assessment time was tedious and somewhat stressful. Students had to literally move to another seat or another part of the classroom for privacy. This would cut into our valuable and limited instructional time. But with the dividers you gave us, that has all changed. The dividers fit inside each desk and are a thick corragated plastic. The size allows each student to stay in their seats and simply pull them out and put them away quickly with no fuss. The color and material of the dividers discourages scribbling. The dividers I had in the past were made of white cardboard and students could not resist drawing on them. After a few years of that, they looked very bad and the card board was never study enough. Now every single student has a shiney new black divider for testing.

Thank you for helping me manage my classroom. Thank you for giving my students new materials. Thank you for your donation. You are much too kind!”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Geter-Roberson