Past projects 7
Hands-on Sight Words and Phonics
Funded Dec 30, 2021Thank you so much for funding my project for my students and me. When students saw the whisper phones, letter tiles and wipe off boards, they were so excited to use it. I am using these materials during a small guided reading time for students who need extra support in reading. Using magnetic letters helps me to model how the letters in a word come together to form the word. Once students learn a new word, their familiarity with the word can serve as a starting point for learning new words and for reinforcing sound knowledge. The hands on and color-coded letter tiles are a fantastic way to help my students to read and spell. My students love to make words using the letter tiles. After students finished making a word, they wrote the word on the wipe off board. They also use the whisper phones which helps students hear the sounds and words they're saying clearly. They love to listen to themselves during the independent reading time. They are so motivated to reading without distracting other students. Thank you again for your donations.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Kim
Writing Letters and Numbers on Magnetic Board
Funded Dec 10, 2020I would like to thank all the donors for funding my project. I am teaching remote learning Pre-K students this year! We started out with hopes and enthusiaums this year. However, I was little worried about how pre-k students will be able to do the assignments without learning materials avaible at home. I tried to assign activities with materials that students can find at home. I noticed that some children didn't have proper writing tools at home. Some of them were using envelopes or any paper they can find to practice writing the alphabet letters with me. I believe that writing with children provides numerous opportunities to develope children's emergent literacy capacities including making meaning/expressing ideas in texts, fine motor skills, concepts of print, phonological awareness, phonics and creating snd exploring texts. I wanted to give the white off board, dry eraser, and dry earser makers for them to work at home. I was so happy when my children received the materials. I created a package for each student to pick it up at school. I was able to put the white off board, earser, makers, crayons, shapes, unifix cubes and workbooks for them. All the parents and children were so excited to use it. Children showed me the board during the zoom meeting and writing the letters and numbers on it. Everyone had the writing tools to use during the instuction time. Some of them used it to write a story and take a picture to upload it on google classroom. Children are enjoying it every day.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Kim
This classroom project was brought to life by An Anonymous Funder and 5 other donors.Pre-K Workbooks
Funded Sep 29, 2020I would like to thank all the donors helping my students to get workbooks for them. When my students received the workbooks, they were so excited to get their own workbooks. Parents were very appreciative and happy to receive workbooks.
Pre-writing skills are the fundamental skills children need to develop before they are able to write. These skills contribute to the child's ability to hold and use a pencil, and the ability to draw, write, copy, and color.
The workbooks had many different activities to do with children at home. The workbook provides the alphabet/manuscript handwriting, following directions activities, basic concepts, reading readiness, thinking skills, word building, numbers and number concepts, shapes, patterns, problem solving and word and picture flash cards. It also has get ready for kindergarten activities for pre k students.
My students are using this workbook at home when they stay at home for remote learning. Parents loved the assigned worksheets so they can support their children at home. Thank you so much for your kind donations.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Kim
Building 3D Fort
Funded Feb 16, 2020Thank you so much for your kind donations. The materials arrived so quickly. My students were so curious when I opened the boxes. When I showed the materials and told my students that they can build a fort with them, they couldn't believe it.
When we think of early mathematical learning, we typically think firstly of numbers. But there is a whole other world of mathematics to enjoy and explore and that is the world of shapes!
Between the ages of two and four years, children typically begin to learn the names of simple 2D shapes incidentally; generally learning about circles, squares and triangles to begin with. Children see them in picture books, on TV shows and in every day life. During the Pre-K school year, children will build on this knowledge, learning about rectangles, ovals, hexagons, pentagons, trapezoid, rhombus, just to name a few. Children learned about these shapes by exploring and identifying shapes in our environment and everyday life. My students often play a shape hunt around the classroom and school building to identified these shapes.
It is not easy to teach 3D shapes to young children. Children often don't understand the difference between 2D shapes and 3D shapes.
Learning 3D shapes just got Way cooler with the 3D The Ultimate Fort Builder.
These engaging, hands-on 3D shape activities teach kids about cubes, pyramids, rectangular prisms, triangular prisms. They are great to use as math centers or math lessons in Pre-K.
Young children need repeated hands-on play with different 3D objects to understand them and they need clear, accurate modeling from the teacher.
My students work together to make 3D shapes. Kids can build any fort they imagine. The Ultimate Fort Builder comes with strong, snap-together builders. Children can easily snap super-sturdy poles connectors together. The kit came with 90 poles and 50 connectors. It is enough for a group of students to work together. As you can see in the photo gallery, my students were able to crawl through the shape they have made. As a teacher, I love how this product gives me the opportunity to build and talk about 3D shapes. This opportunity gives me a chance to have my student do the problem solving. If the arrows on the connectors are not pointing in the right direction, children can not connect the poles as they need to, therefore, children need to figure out which connector is around the wrong way and correct it.
My students made a rectangular prism shape to make a tent at their dramatic center. We created a camping site with the fake camp fire with marshmallow and sausages. We covered the rectangular prism shape with a fabric to make a tent. My students were so happy to make it and use it at the dramatic center for this month unit. This became everyone's favorite center to go everyday. I was happy to connect the shape lessons with the real life experiences.
My students would like to thank the kind donors to have purchased the materials for the class. They truly enjoying playing with them. I know I can use these materials for next year as well. Thank you once again.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Kim
Gross Motor Activities for Pre-K Students!
Funded Feb 5, 2020Thank you so much for your kind donations. The materials arrived so quickly. My students were so curious when I opened the boxes. When I showed the materials and told my students that they can exercise with them, they couldn't believe it. Children naturally love to step on something and walk on it. My students are extremely happy to play with the Step-a-Logs beams during the exercise time. Two ramps enable easy access for children to walk one foot in front of the other on the various balance platforms. These stepping logs provide another dimension to balance and co-ordination. Each log has a ribbed top platform to help prevent slipping and they are connected with rope. I feel safe to use them with my students. I put the beams in different directions to help my students to walk in different directions. In the beginning, my students were afraid to walk on the beams without falling down. As we use the beams more and more, students feel comfortable using the beams. Pre-K students need to be assessed in the beginning of the school year. During the month of September, students are assessed with gross motor and fine motor. Many students don't meet the passing criteria on gross and fine motor skills. One of the assessment requires students to walk on the straight line. Too many students struggle with this activity. A lot of them are not able to hop five times on one foot. Some students don't understand and follow the direction on jumping over the line. These beams are helping my students to learn how to balance while they are having fun. My students are able to develop correct balance and direction skills during this gross motor activity. I am able to observe my students gaining confidence and a sense of achievements during this activity.
After children walk on the beams, my students also use the Riverstones to pretend that they are stepping stones in a river. They are jumping from stone to stone without touching the floor. They love to play with these Riverstones in class. We started with a short distance between the Riverstones. As the students get better and better with the short distances, I am planning to make the distances longer. I usually put the tunnel after the Riverstones, so students have to jump on the Riverstones and then crawl through the tunnel. I can't wait till the weather get better. I want to take the beams, Riverstones, tunnels and the jump ropes to outside for outdoor activities. Some children can now balance themselves better than before. Children like to decide how they can vary the position of the stones and beams to create more challenging paths for each time. My students cheer when it is time to exercise with the materials. My students would like to thank the kind donors to have purchased the materials for the class. They truly enjoy playing with them. I know I can use these materials for next year as well. Thank you once again.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Kim
This classroom project was brought to life by Target Corporation and 2 other donors.Listen To The Stories On CD
Funded Apr 3, 2019I wanted to thank you for your kind donations. My children love to listen to stories on CD everyday.
Listening to audiobooks provided my children develop reading skills. When children listen to the same stories repeatedly, they understand the stories better. This increases their comprehensions.
The listening center with CD books provide my children become independent readers. Choosing the books their love to read gives them the chance to love reading. This also gave them a chance to read books with their friends.
My children are improving their vocabulary by listening to the audiobooks while reading along in the text version. They learn how to correctly pronounce words. They are able to recognize the text patterns that help them read along while listening to the story.
My students had opportunities to listen to the same stories again.
Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Kim
Learning Letters and Sounds
Funded Jan 30, 2019My Pre-K class are thrilled to have many teaching materials that help us to learn.
Students are using the Alphabet Sounds Teaching Tubs materials to recognize letter-sound correspondence. This material is providing a terrific, hands-on introduction to letters and their sounds. They are so excited to take the miniatures out of a tub and talk about the letter name and the sound. As you can see on a photo, two students were using the miniatures to name the letter and sound for each object. The students have been playing "I Spy a Sound", "Alphabet Order", "Identifying Final Sounds", "Letter Matching" and "Decoding Simple Words" games with this teaching materials.
We are so happy to have many books that support children's emotions. We read books with social-emotional plots. These books provide opportunities to learn and discuss about their feelings. It is useful to teach children how to label emotions, cope with and problem-solve emotions, and appropriately express emotions through these books. Children were asked to think about someone who is angry (happy, sad, scare) and what might make them feel that way. Children were asked to think about how they can tell when someone is angry (happy, sad, scare). They use the facial expressions or postures that demote anger. The emotions of the characters in the story helps them learn a variety of emotions. Students were able to tell the teacher the similar experiences they had just like the characters in the story. Whenever children need to talk about their feelings, the teacher read a book and discussed their feelings. This helps them to learn coping strategies to manage their emotions. These books have very expressive illustrations that helped children identify the feelings. We are in love with these books!
Pre-K programs should be more intentional about including student/people with differing abilities. This diversity will benefit students and staff to be more understanding towards disabilities. Children often don't have the opportunities to play with dolls and toys that represent people with differing abilities. I love to foster understanding of diversity through imaginative play. We received Lakeshore Block Play People with Differing Abilities. These characters are a wonderful addition to our block people at the centers. Since I introduced the toys to the class, children have not been able to put them down. They use these people for sand table, puppet theater and block center.
Children use computers to play a math game in class every day. They need to login to a website called Building Blocks Math Games. Children are required to play the game for 15 min for each week. The digital timer has been a wonderful tool to let the children self monitor the time on the computer. Teachers often forgot to remind the time to children, but children can now stop the game after 15 min. This tool helped children to be independent in my class.
Pre-K children are required to exercise to develop the gross motor skills. They need to learn how to skip, alternating feet, jump, hop 5 times on one foot, balance on one foot for 5-10 seconds. We are so lucky to have the CD Player to play the exercise music in class. Children are having so much fun dancing and exercising. They don't even know that they are exercising through music. They follow the directions in music to jump, hop, crawl and stretching.
Children also use the CD player for listening center. They play a story CD and listen to the story while they are looking at the book. Children love to listen to their favorite and familiar story on CD player every day. This has been one of their favorite center in class.
I want to thank you for your kind donations for my class. We are using them every day and children are having so much fun with all the materials.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Kim