Past projects 2
Brain Bins: Sparking Creativity and Innovation In Our Early Finishers
Funded Aug 13, 2024I am writing to express my heartfelt gratitude for your invaluable support in helping me secure funding for the brain bins project. Your assistance was crucial in bringing this initiative to life, and I am excited to see the positive impact it will have on fostering creativity and critical thinking among students.
Thank you once again for your support and belief in this project.”
With gratitude,
Ms. C
Sparking Stem with a Good Book
Funded Aug 16, 2020These books have been an irreplaceable tool in my classroom this year. I've already integrated so many of them into my lessons and the students have loved them! The first few weeks of school, I find, are so essential to getting students excited about STEAM. With how this school year was going to be, I felt it was more important than ever to have my first interaction with students to be something they would walk away from with a smile on their face. The books you donated became a part of that! This years STEAM journey with students began with a read-aloud of Ada Twist Scientist, Rosie Revere Engineer, or Iggy Peck Architect (I switched up which one depending on the grade level). The students loved these books and really sparked conversations with them about STEAM. It was amazing to hear the giggles about Iggy building with food or the predictions about what Ada was smelling. They also provided an incredible opportunity to talk to students about how "failing" in STEAM isn't really failing. Trial and error are part of the process of learning. I find this to always be a concept that students struggle to understand, that when things do not work exactly how we want, it's okay! We just take what we learn and make improvements.
A few other ways I have used these books is by reading excerpts from "Women in Science" to expose students to real life stories of people in this field. Whenever diving into a unit of study with a class, I like to try and introduce students to different career paths that fit into that area of study. Having this incredible resource to share inspiring stories of people in this field have been such an engaging tool. I was able to use the story of Florence Bascom (A geologist from Massachusetts) to introduce a study on geology. Students then got to be geologists themselves by "interviewing a rock". Students had so much fun with this and I have attached some pictures from it.
The book "Ask a Scientist" has been a life saver during technology issues. Teaching virtually has definitely been a challenge. I was able to make a game with this book though to fill time while things load. I will ask students to pick a number from 8 to 121 and then will turn to that page in the book. Then we'll read together the question and the answer. The students love to do this! They find the questions so interesting. I love this as a way to fill time while still learning about Science.
I have had several students reach out to me about how excited they are each week for STEAM class. These books have become an essential tool for my teaching this year. They are wonderful to introduce a topic, extend students knowledge, or wrap up a unit. I used a variety of them with 2nd grade to learn about different types of engineers. Then students wrote down what type of engineer they would like to be, along with a picture. I attached some pictures of this as well!
Thank you so much from myself and my students for providing these books that I know are helping to inspire their future. It would have taken years for me to build up this collection of books, so thank you so much for helping make this happen! As unpredictable as this year has been, these books have helped immensely in engaging and inspiring students in STEAM.”
With gratitude,
Ms. C