Past projects 32
Engaging Students While Distance Learning
Funded Feb 14, 2021Thank YOU for funding my project! The Teachers Pay Teachers gift cards are so valuable! Amazing, tech-savvy teachers have created interactive, student centered activities that are standards aligned using Seesaw. These activities allow my students to record their voices reading words and numbers. Students can also write and draw letters and numbers and manipulate objects. I am using these activities as a lesson extension and independent practice. These activities allow me to collect digital artifacts for my records and to share with parents.
I am beyond grateful for your help in completing my class set of white boards. We are slated to return to the classroom in late March. These will be heavily used by my students!
My apologies for the delay in posting. I was hit hard with COVID. I'm still working through some side effects.
Stay healthy and well.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Nelson
Engaging Books Focusing on Sight Words and Word Families
Funded Dec 2, 2020My students were ecstatic when I opened the boxes and shared our new class resources. They could not wait to explore the new word family and sight word books!
I purchased a document camera to use at home so I can share these resources on my computer screen. My students LOVE the word family books! My heart sings when I hear the joy in their voices as they read. Some students use the pictures clues to connect the letters, and others can blend the letter sounds. It's a WIN-WIN for all my students!
The best gift from this project is listening to my students read aloud. In addition, I use these books to reinforce concepts of print - spacing between words, punctuation, reading left to right and capitalization.
Thank YOU for supporting my project and my students. You've given them access to books they can read while building their academic confidence.
I apologize for the delay in posting my thank you note. I am bouncing back from COVID.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Nelson
This classroom project was brought to life by FamilyAlbum and 4 other donors.Arts, Crafts, Puzzles, STEM Activities Focusing on Fine Motor Skills!
Funded Nov 23, 2020Today was a magical morning! I had multiple boxes delivered to my classroom. My students COULD NOT WAIT to see what was hidden behind the magical delivery boxes and tape!
My students kept asking when they'll be able to come to school to build, create and play with these hands on activities. The smiles on their faces were priceless! I shared with them how my childhood memories reflected these items, and I hope they all find the same joy.
During this pandemic, students are on computers way too much! These chosen items will allow kids to decompress from computers and enjoy learning through hand held manipulatives. The large puzzle pieces are incredible! Students are constantly troubleshooting and manipulating the angles, figuring out the proper placement. It definitely focuses on a growth mindset as well as having a positive social emotional impact!
We are a STEM school, and my students are excited to build with magnetic and wooden sticks, string pony beads on pipe cleaners, use jumbo tweezers to sort buttons and small pomp poms. These are such important fine motor skills for my students, as well as engaging student engineering minds.
Thank you for providing these fantastic class materials that will make a fun and engaging social emotional impact while learning at school. Thank you for being my financial angel! Fingers crossed we'll be back in the classroom soon!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Nelson
This classroom project was brought to life by Allstate Foundation.Individual Tools for Student Success
Funded Sep 16, 2020Thank YOU for your financial support benefitting my students and classroom!
I am currently using the "Magnetic Sorting Tiles" weekly in small groups. It's really helpful for students who can recognize a picture, but not able to recognize a particular letter sound. The pictures help build student confidence, and they are able to correctly match and begin to understand the correlation with the letter and pictures it represents.
Your support has helped provide individual writing journals for my students. These journals are colorful and easy to manipulate with small hands. I love it because they are spiral bound and student work will be sequenced, showing growth over the months in school.
The individual pencil boxes are perfect for each student. I can no longer have community materials for my class. Now my students can keep their own pencils, crayons, glue sticks and erasers.
I am super excited to share the "Hear Myself Sound Phone Sets" with my class when we return to school. My students love to talk! I can not wait for them to be able to hear themselves in a whisper voice pronouncing words and fine tuning their intonation and letter sounds.
Again, thank YOU for supporting my classroom. I am grateful, and my students are lucky ducks!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Nelson
This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose 20th Anniversary Fund and 6 other donors.Hands On Daily Math Fluency Kit
Funded Oct 17, 2020Thank you for your generous financial support for our class "Hands On Daily Math Fluency Kit."
Although we are virtual at this time, I have used many of the activities with my students. We are currently composing and decomposing numbers. The use of the colored linking cubes provides a great visual for my students. They are able to count the cubes and decompose the whole number into the smaller numbers based on the color of the linking cubes. I am able to model the concept, and my students find items in their homes, and they show me how they decompose their objects.
As a class, we use the dominos to count. I'll super-size the concept by asking the students to add (+1) to the number. For my smarties, these students can add in their heads. Otherwise, I use the number paths and model for my students. The number paths offer a great visual to understand the concept.
The ten frames are handy, and students can grasp the concept of how many pegs are in the ten frame, and how many more are needed to make ten. I can not wait for my students to physically manipulate these materials, but I find them all very helpful while teaching my math lessons.
Again, with sincere gratitude, I thank YOU all for supporting my class project. My fingers are crossed we will be back in the classroom in January!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Nelson
Fine Motor Skills via Art and Writing!
Funded May 6, 2020Thank you for your financial support and funding my "Fine Motor Skills via Art and Writing.
I have found working with dry erase boards eases student frustration when learning to write. Marks, letters, numbers or anything else can be easily wiped away. Dry erase boards will also be KEY during COVID 19 when paper and pencils will be limited.
I distributed some of the play dough to my students while we're virtually learning. It is so important for them to work on their fine motor skills. Students can practice rolling the play dough into a ball, patting it flat, rolling it into a line, making an alphabet letter or number. The possibilities are limitless.
I am grateful for my book case to hold our classroom books. Students will be able to see their options, instead of looking through tubs of books. Students will also have their own supply of jumbo crayons to use in class, and I can physically help them hold the crayons properly. Again, working on their fine motor skills.
Thank you for support. My students are so lucky to have AMAZING DONORS like YOU!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Nelson
This classroom project was brought to life by SONIC Drive-In and 6 other donors.Technology - Headphones for Individual Use
Funded Aug 26, 2020Thank YOU for coming to my rescue and supplying individual headphones for my students!
While teaching online during COVID-19, I quickly noticed that not all students have the option to sit in a quiet location to participate in class. Also, not all students are able to learn from home, many students are learning at various daycare centers.
I quickly submitted a DonorsChoose project to help these students, and give them the opportunity to tune out all the background noise while participating in class. What a difference! My students can hear! My students can participate! My students can focus a bit better, too! It's wonderful.
Although online learning is not ideal, YOU have given my students much needed quiet space through individual headphones, and YOU have given them the opportunity to succeed in our virtual class.
I am so grateful. Thank you for supporting my project -- benefitting my students!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Nelson
This classroom project was brought to life by A Generous Donor and 6 other donors.Small Group Kidney Table
Funded May 28, 2020I want to thank you ALL for your financial support for purchasing a kidney table for my classroom!
I can not wait to have students back at school and in my room. I am excited to gather around the kidney table and work in small groups. Very small groups, due to COVID.
A kidney table allows easy access to reach students, whether it is modeling where to point to a word in their book, or re-teach a math concept using manipulatives.
I am currently working in my classroom while Zooming with students from home. My kidney table also makes the perfect teacher's desk!
Again, thank YOU! I am beyond grateful!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Nelson
This classroom project was brought to life by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and 6 other donors.Grade Level Readers & Listening Center
Funded Aug 23, 2020Thank YOU for making my Grade Level Readers and Listening Center a reality! Especially during COVID-19. I created this project last spring. I never dreamt we would not be back in the classroom. This was a lofty project and so important to me! I want to provide my students the opportunity to fall in love with reading. YOU have given my students access to emergent reading materials, offering so many options to choose from!
I recently returned to teaching after a 16 year hiatus to raise my family. I had donated all my classroom books and teacher books to new teachers. With YOUR help, I am able to provide a classroom library to my students. Even more exciting, is offering a new reading center with quality headphones with volume control and a CD player. I chose fun fiction books, Henry and Mudge, and popular non-fiction books from National Geographic.
Also included in the selection were books focusing on social emotional well-being. A topic that is very important to include in school. It's not all about academics. We all need to learn about compassion, acceptance, and being kind to others....and ourselves!
Again, thank YOU! I am GRATEFUL!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Nelson
This classroom project was brought to life by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and 18 other donors.Teacher Directed Art Drawings
Funded Sep 16, 2020Thank YOU for helping me bring teacher directed art lessons to my students! With your help, I have a full calendar year of art projects to share with my students.
Art is a refreshing break (so the students think) from our daily curriculum of math, language arts, and the sciences. Little to they realize, WE ARE hitting all these topics in a very fun way. First, students are drawing shapes, which tie into our math curriculum. I'm focusing on a handful of English Language Arts standards including listening, letter recognition, sound recognition, concepts of print, hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills via grasping a crayon or marker.
Today, we started on our first art project from the curriculum. I led the students through the steps to draw a Halloween bat. We used shapes, lines, and letters. The students were so excited. I hope you enjoy our bats! I am over the moon excited to share this curriculum with my students throughout the year.
Again, with so much gratitude, I thank YOU for funding my teacher directed art lessons!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Nelson
This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose 20th Anniversary Fund and 3 other donors.