Past projects 41
Printing Our Own Books And Copies For All!
Funded Mar 23, 2017Thank you so much for making our publishing wishes come true. We have started creating our books and the children are thrilled! Now, more than ever, the children are choosing to go to the writing center and utilizing writing materials to create books and to illustrate their writing. They use a variety of paper, pencils, markers, colored pencils and crayons to bring their ideas to life. They are also using picture-word dictionaries to find words they need to know how to spell. This has generated a lot of enthusiasm for both reading and writing. The most satisfying part is seeing the excitement on the children's faces when we copy their writing. They feel like professional writers and enjoy taking their writing home, while leaving the copy on display at school.
Thank you again so much for helping our classroom!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Weisberg
Practical Printing
Funded Aug 25, 2015Thank you so much for your help funding our project. My students were excited to see that we have the ink we need to begin printing the projects they create on our classroom computers. They started creating things right away and are gaining technology skills daily utilizing our school-wide technology program and the software we have been using in class. We are going to begin printing their creations and keeping them in their portfolios to share with parents during conferences.
We appreciate the support with helping our dreams come true. Though my class is composed of 4 and 5 year old students, they are surprisingly capable using the computers. They are excited to create documents, computer art and to print certificates from the programs we use in class.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Weisberg
Little Computer Wizards Love Tactile Learning!
Funded Apr 8, 2015We have been struggling with our failing headsets for months now. I have tried repairing the wires and the children have tried to keep them on their 5 year-old heads. When the new headsets arrived the children were so happy! They fit on their heads perfectly and are cushioned for comfort. As I have been teaching them the responsibility of taking care of the computers, the children have learned to turn them on, find our websites, navigate the sites and shut the computers down each day so updates can take place. Now with our new cleaning materials, they can learn to maintain the computers and keep the keyboards and monitors clean and dust free.
My TK and kindergarten students are independent and competent technology students. It's amazing!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Weisberg
Digging Up Some Fun in Kindergarten
Funded Sep 11, 2014My students were so excited to begin gardening and even more excited when the great gardening materials arrived. I have two parents who have volunteered to be garden moms this year, and they began right away with the Root-Vue garden. The children planted the seeds and were so thrilled when the sprouts began coming up within two days!
The next step was to plant in our raised bed garden. The children used the gloves to dig in the soil, the wheelbarrow to take materials and the watering cans to water their seedlings. The storage scooter is great for keeping all of the materials organized.
Gardening is a great way for my students to learn about life cycles, caring for the earth and to enjoy being outdoors. These materials enhance our gardening program and we are so grateful to have them!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Weisberg
Playground Fun!
Funded Aug 28, 2014The children were so excited to receive our materials! We opened all of the boxes and set up the ring toss right away because they were so excited to try it out. Our P.E. Coach used the scooters the next week in a lesson to teach the children the correct way to safely use the scooters and the cones. The children had a great time maneuvering the scooters around the playground. All 70 kindergarten children received instruction and enjoyed using the scooters. We are using them during our regular recess playtime too.
On warm afternoons we have enjoyed using the bubbles and the children are so excited to paint at our new easel station.Our outdoor area is now such an exciting place to play and the children are gaining psycho-motor skills while they have fun with the new materials. This week the children practiced underhand tossing focusing on left and right coordination.
This project enabled the four kindergarten teachers, P.E. Coach and the playground aides to give the children an exciting fun and educational playground experience. They are learning social skills, physical coordination and most of all, they are excited to play!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Weisberg
Dramatic Play with Animals
Funded Feb 4, 2014When I arrived at school and found the big box waiting, I knew the animals were her! The children were so excited and helped to organize the animals according to habitat and could not wait for Free Choice time that afternoon. In fact, they were so excited, we changed our reading group activities and made block work a center activity for the morning. The children all got a chance to explore the animals and created block habitats for the animals to live in. One of their favorite activities is to create a huge block zoo and populate it with our new animals. With the addition of the animals, blocks has quickly become the favorite play area.
Thanks you again so much for making this possible!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Weisberg
Learning Fun with Games and Puzzles
Funded Dec 2, 2013You just cannot imagine the squeals of delight as I opened the big box of puzzles and games! The students just love the puzzles and ask to use them every day and the Bingo games cover so many skills and are just perfect for intervention as well as whole class games. I think that the highlight was the pizza game, requiring fine motor coordination and finesse. The children had the opportunity to play the game with a parent volunteer and it quickly became a class favorite.
Thank you all so much for giving the children a wonderful way to connect Common Core learning with having so much fun.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Weisberg
Express Yourself!
Funded Oct 11, 2013My students were so excited when the big box of materials arrived! We opened the items one by one and they just couldn't wait to use the sponges, stamps and letter rubbing cards. I planned activities for the next week using all of the materials.
We have been using the materials at our learning centers during language arts and math time. It is a great way for the children to explore letters and numbers. They stamp/painted their names and practiced using capital and lower case letters. They explored numbers and quantities. Kids love to stamp pictures too and they had a great time using the little stampers. The paint rollers provided a pretty clean way to paint and the children made lots of designs with them.
Children learn best by doing and creative projects are the best! My students are very creative and having all of these great materials inspires all of us to make art a part of our learning.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Weisberg
Refining Fine Motor Skills for TK Students
Funded Oct 4, 2013This children were so excited when the box arrived with our Handwriting Without Tears materials! Today we used the Tag Bags and played a fun game with color sorting. The children all got to manipulate the bag closures and had fun opening them up and discovering what was inside. We absolutely love singing the Tap Big Lines song and tapping the wood pieces to the very fast music. The children are building letters on the blue mats and of course they can't wait to hear all of the Mat Man stories. Having these materials makes learning so much fun and is encouraging beautiful printing of the alphabet letters.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Weisberg
A Little Privacy Please, and Some Outdoor Fun
Funded Aug 17, 2013The day the packages arrived the children were so excited. We opened the package and the students immediately wanted to blow bubbles. It was a warm afternoon and the bubble break was exactly what we all needed. The children took turns using a variety of bubble wands and both blowing and popping bubbles. This was so great, not only for fun, but for developing eye-hand coordination. The children had fun sharing and playing together. We continue to use the bubble liquid during our outdoor time.
The sensory sand tray is a big hit now that it is filled with fresh, new, clean sand. The children enjoy making patterns in the sand as well as practicing their writing skills tracing alphabet letters and numbers. For many children, the cool feel of the sand is a calming experience and because they get to use the tray one at a time, the time alone is cherished,
The "offices," as we call them, are loved by the children. They like the privacy and the feeling of "working" in their office. The partitions are useful for children who get distracted and help children stay focused on their work.
A little work and a lot of fun is just what we needed!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Weisberg
This classroom project was brought to life by First 5 LA and 3 other donors.