Past projects 10
Power Pens For Fact Fluency!
Funded Apr 7, 2022Thank you so much for contributing to fact fluency in my classroom! The first time I introduced these Power Pens, my students were ecstatic! Typical grumbling about practicing math facts was replaced with enthusiasm for the new tool.
Now they are available daily for fluency practice during our math intervention block. Students are independently able to take the bin of the cards and pens and work with a partner or solo to practice their facts. In fifth grade, we rely on knowing our facts for so many of the more complex math concepts we need to tackle like fraction operations and long division. This fact practice is essential to their math success!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Barnes
This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose community & an Anonymous Partner and 6 other donors.Easel for Easy Organized Mornings
Funded Aug 9, 2022Wow! Thank you so much for your contribution to our classroom. Because the easel is mobile, we’ll be able to use it at multiple points throughout the day starting with our morning work and sign in as well as to record our thinking during lessons. I can’t wait to use our new easel when we go back to school in 3 weeks!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Barnes
This classroom project was brought to life by Bill Gates and 8 other donors.Stella by Starlight for Historical Fiction Study
Funded Apr 7, 2022Thank you so much for contributing to our class set of Stella by Starlight books. We just wrapped up reading this text during our historical fiction unit.
While we read Stella's story, we researched and wrote about the historical time period she was living in. Students studied the origins of Jim Crow Laws, the impact of these laws on everyday life for Black Americans and especially how this movement had a social influence in small communities like the fictional Bumblebee, North Carolina, where Stella lives.
Our research led to some really eye-opening learning moments for my students. We also felt so connected to Stella because of Sharon M. Draper's emotive writing style. This connection helped make their learning feel a little more real - someone that they felt they knew, Stella, was experiencing what we had studied in our research.
I will use this class set again for years to come and I am so thankful for your support.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Barnes
This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose community & an Anonymous Partner and 2 other donors.Comfy Carpet for Our Classroom Community!
Funded Aug 12, 2021If you are ever in Middletown, Connecticut at 9am on a school day, please stop by my classroom to see how loved your donation is. Every single morning we gather on the carpet to check in about how we're doing, get prepared for the day, support each other, share our thoughts and play games. This is the first year I have had such a lovely carpet in my classroom and since September, students have been truly obsessed with it. They noticed it right away as they came in on the first day and through the year it has been the proverbial "hot spot" of our room. Every day the carpet is full of students with books, chromebooks, notebooks, math workbooks, etc relaxing in this cozy spot and getting their work done. As a class, we have taken extra special care of this carpet and the school custodians have also adopted the rug to protect and contribute to it's longevity as well. I am so grateful that my classes will get to enjoy this special spot for years to come.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Barnes
This classroom project was brought to life by Bill Gates and 5 other donors.Current Events Make Us Conscious Citizens
Funded May 7, 2021Thank you so much for your contribution to our classroom! The Scholastic News print and digital magazines have been an excellent supplement to our literacy lessons. The articles are relevant and timely, so it helps my students connect to current events with text written at their level.
In fifth grade, students are so curious about the world and what's happening around them. Due to the rise of social media, there is a ton of information circulating for kids, not always accurate. Using these articles have helped us to learn more about media literacy and appropriate researching practices. I love being able to pull out a Scholastic article related to a major talking point or current issue and learn together.
Many thanks again for supporting my fifth grade learners!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Barnes
This classroom project was brought to life by SONIC Drive-In and 4 other donors.Graphic Novels for Illustrative Students
Funded May 7, 2021I can't thank you enough for your donation to the graphic novel collection in our classroom library. We read every single day at school and this year we've all embarked on a 30 Book Challenge in an attempt to read more books from a greater variety of genres.
I have to tell you, the graphic novels FLY off the shelf and our "book return" bin is full of them often as kids quickly devour these stories. Some consider graphic novels to be "less than" typical reading because there are pictures included, but I definitely don't ascribe to that philosophy. Reading graphic novels gets my students excited about reading, motivated by reading series and engaged with reading as a hobby, not a "have to." With our 30 Book Challenge, many students started with the graphic novel genre and once they got invested in reading, they have branched out to other books as they work their way to 30!
Thank you again so much for your contribution to reading in our classroom. I know these texts will be treasured by my 5th graders for years to come.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Barnes
Way Back When... Historical Fiction Teaches Us About Our Future
Funded Oct 22, 2020Thank you so much for contributing to the historical text and historical fiction text collection in our classroom! These books are incredibly helpful because they engage students in learning about our past through story-telling. When we read "Blood on the River" this year, students were able to relate to the narrator, Sam, and his experiences in the early colony of Jamestown. This connection helped students to understand the experience in Jamestown in a more engaging way.
Currently, we are reading "Indian No More," a novel written by Native American women about the experience of the Indian Relocation Act of 1956. The concept of living on a reservation and then being "terminated" is a part of our nation's relationship with it's native peoples that was mostly unknown to my students and they were quickly able to draw parallels to marginalized populations in our nation today, making the text even more relatable.
Starting later in March we'll read "King George, what was his problem?" which will help students understand the causes and effects of the Revolutionary War. Due to your generosity, my students will each have a text to read along with. My students are all at different reading levels, but being able to engage physically with the text and follow along as it's read will support their understanding of this concept immensely. Thank you again for your support of our learning!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Barnes
This classroom project was brought to life by An Anonymous Donor and 2 other donors.Surfing Into Flexible Seats
Funded Sep 16, 2020When the boxes of SURF seats arrived, my students were incredibly curious about what could be in the large boxes. When I had them unboxed and organized the next day, they wanted to use them right away.
Having these seats available during this unprecedented time of hybrid learning has been helpful because kids are able to sit differently/comfortably on the floor while maintaining social distance regulations. With the amount of independent work students have been doing this year, these seats have helped kids to have a choice of how to work, even when a lot of the typical activities we would have in a regular year have not been a choice.
As we continue to adjust throughout this year and in the future, I know that these seats will continue to be a classroom favorite for my students.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Barnes
This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose 20th Anniversary Fund and one other donor.To Hybrid Learning...and Beyond!
Funded Aug 17, 2020As was true for teachers across the country, health and safety was my first priority for back to school this year. I wanted to make sure that all of students had plenty of their own space for social distancing and that we had enough materials so that no one would need to share.
Due to your generosity, my students have been able to stay socially distant, use their own materials, kept separately in their own pencil pouches/book bins and to get outside for learning as often as possible. For example, we always wear masks in school, so we love to get outside and take "mask breaks." In one photo attached, we took our clipboards outside on a brisk fall day to work on a science assignment in the fresh air.
We keep saying in my classroom, "school in a pandemic is tough but so are we." Thank you so much for your contribution to making school in a pandemic more comfortable.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Barnes
Re-stocking Our Classroom Library After Covid-19
Funded Jun 13, 2020Coming back to school this year has been amazing, difficult and unlike any other year I've experienced. After closing in March due to Covid-19, my classroom library was missing many texts that we had loved last year that I sent home with students. This project revived my library and has allowed students some sense of normalcy of always having a book to read at school. For the first six weeks of school, students were not allowed to "browse" classroom libraries, but could discuss their reading interests with me and I could provide books for them to choose from.
I actually really appreciated this entry into reading in our classroom and might continue it even after our school model changes again. I loved being able to sit one-on-one with a student and discuss books that they have enjoyed and hear about their general attitudes towards reading. It was a helpful way to get to know my students as readers when it came to their CHOICE reading, and understand that part of their personalities. After our conversation, I would select 2-3 books for them to keep in their book box for independent reading times. Due to the wide variety of texts in this project, I was able to find books to hold the interest of everyone in my class - even a very reluctant reader was pleased to find a character she could relate to in the graphic novel "Sanity and Tallulah" by Molly Brooks! To keep everyone safe, when a student finishes a text or is not interested, it gets placed in our "book quarantine" for a week before being returned to the shelves by me.
Now that we are further into the school year, students are allowed to browse our library shelves without my input, but I've loved to see students coming back to texts we discussed and using my suggestions or classmates' suggestions for what books to read next. We still "quarantine" books as students finish them.
In my class, we keep saying "school in a pandemic is tough, but so are we." Thank you for making reading at school in a pandemic a bit more joyful with the gift of these new books.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Barnes