Past projects 6
Rocky's Storybox: the Magic of Music, Books and Positive Messages
Funded May 20, 2024On behalf of our kindergarten class, I want to extend a heartfelt thank you for your generous donation toward the purchase of a Tonie Box for our classroom.
Thanks to your kindness, our young learners now have a wonderful listening center that brings stories to life in an engaging and imaginative way. The Tonie Box has already made a big difference—it's fostering a love for storytelling, enhancing listening skills, and creating moments of joy as students explore new worlds and characters.
With each new story, you are helping to open their minds to endless possibilities, and for that, we are incredibly grateful. Seeing their excitement and hearing their laughter as they interact with the Tonie Box has been a true gift!
Your support means the world to us, and we can't thank you enough for your generosity. You've not only contributed to the success of our classroom but also to the growth and development of each child who will benefit from this incredible resource for years to come.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Hefley
This classroom project was brought to life by An Anonymous Supporter and 2 other donors.Rocky's Nest Storybox
Funded Sep 11, 2023Thank you so much for your generous donation. This brought a Toniebox and a small collection of Tonies to one of our billingual classrooms. Tonies are little characters that when paired with their box produce sound, most of ours are messages to students, songs and especially books read aloud. The kids LOVE these and look forward to using this tool to learn and bring books to life. In this classroom especially it is making a difference in their language comprehension and language skills. They are excited about learning, excited about reading and that is showing in so many ways. Thank you for helping us make that possible.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Hefley
This classroom project was brought to life by Panda Cares and one other donor.Play: Beginning With the End in Mind
Funded May 4, 2021Thank you so much for supporting our Makerspace. Students are so excited to be back in the Learning Commons and using these materials to promote both the 5 C's of communication, collaboration, creativity, critical thinking and curiosity but also the 7 Habits of Happy Kids. When they see these new materials they get so enthusiastic about coming into the Learning Commons for their turn with Makerspace and Playkerspace. We have been very purposeful with this time and these materials and we can already see the benefits with our students but look forward to many years of growth as well.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Hefley
This classroom project was brought to life by H-E-B and 2 other donors.Cardboard Innovation Lab
Funded Apr 24, 2018Words cannot express our gratitude for your generosity. Our school is blessed with a diverse population but unfortunately our students come from high poverty and do not have access to materials like these at home. Students were so excited when they saw that we were adding the special tools to MakerSpace collection for their use. I was excited because these materials are being used by individual students, pairs of students, small groups and an entire GRADE level of students for their economics carnival to build many skills. Using these students are learning to collaborate, think creatively, think critically, communicate while creating some amazing cardboard creations.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Hefley
Our MakerSpace
Funded Sep 27, 2016Words cannot express our gratitude for your generosity. Our school is blessed with a diverse population but unfortunately our students come from high poverty and do not have access to materials like these at home. Students were so excited when they saw that we were adding all of these great options to our MakerSpace collection for their use. I was excited because these materials are being used by individual students, pairs of students, small groups and several clubs to build many skills. Using these students are learning to collaborate, think creatively, think critically, communicate all in addition to basic coding/programming skills.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Hefley
The Make(r) Wonder Robots Challenge
Funded Sep 2, 2016Dear Donors,
Words cannot express our gratitude for your generosity. Our school is blessed with a diverse population but unfortunately our students come from high poverty and do not have access to technology at home. Our school does have iPads that students use but we strive to take students beyond consumers (watching YouTube, reading online, etc.) to creators and critical thinkers. Students were so excited when they saw that we were adding the Dash and Dot robots to our MakerSpace collection for their use. I was excited because these robots are being used by individual students, pairs of students, small groups and several clubs to build many skills. Using these robots they are learning to collaborate, think creatively, think critically, communicate all in addition to basic coding/programming skills.
One to two of the robots are always available to students to use in the Makerspace throughout the day. They start with the easiest challenge of trying to figure out how the little robots work, how to get to point A to point B and then they are off! It is not unusual to come into our Learning Commons and have a robot zooming past you and then have it stop and say Hi (kids also like to make it roar like a dinosaur or chase with the police siren sound commands). I get really excited when I see that AHA moment for kids and then they rush off to explain it to the other students and share what they have learned. They love them because they can start very basic, have success and keep building on that success to learn more and more. Even though we use the robots K-5 (and we have some SMART/ADVANCED 5th graders) we have yet to have a student get bored with them because there is always a new challenge to concur and learning to be had.
All of the robots are used with our Coding Clubs. We have a Coding club for our youngest students and one for the older students. Both use the same robots but at different levels. Using the robots we are able to bring programming and coding to life for kids and give them hands-on application and challenges to complete. These clubs are EXTREMELY popular and kids cannot get enough. In fact, what is exciting to see is that even though we have a diverse population these are used and loved by ALL, including girls. It was your generosity that made this possible for our students and for that we thank you.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Hefley