Past projects 254
Crankin' Up the Music in Pre-K!
Funded Oct 24, 2019Thank you so much for helping us bring music in unconventional ways into our classroom. Music plays such an important role in our lives and now it's in the lives of our pre-K kids. Singing, dancing, and making music comes to children naturally. Our Hello Song, Days of the Week, Months of the Year, and Good Bye song are sung on a daily basis. But our children bring their own music into the classroom as they sing songs that are special to them. In dramatic play, they now have a outlet to perform and sing songs to their hearts content. Thanks to you, their music making sessions are recorded and easily shared to inspire others. Thank you for cranking up the music in our small class.”
With gratitude,
Mr. Andy
New Year, New Me!
Funded Aug 23, 2019Thank you so much for helping us kick off the new school year so successfully. If you think back to your very first school experience, you may have felt a bit nervous and unsure of what to expect. For our students, they felt the same way. The first day jitters are experienced by the students, parents, and even the teachers! To make a great first impression, your support of this project allowed us to get the new Mo Willems Pigeon book and helped calm those butterflies in the stomach. Some of our kids were already familiar with the silly Pigeon and others explored the books with their family. These gestures all help us develop the rapport we need to make the school year as successful as the previous. In some homes, it may be the very first book their children owns. Their journey of becoming readers began with the book you helped them get and that is such an incredible thing.
As our kids got used to the school routines and setting, some new and exciting toys were introduced to help stimulate their creative minds. In our block center, our kids learned to engineer a successful ramp so their ball can navigate the course without fail. In table toys, our kids enjoyed our new manipulative magnetic robots that allow for endless combination of robotic builds.
We will also be having our first family engagement workshop very soon. Our families will be treated to a session full of fun board games to play in the classroom with their children. This will help give them an idea of things to do with their children that do not involve a screen. In the end, they will take him a game of their own to play, Jenga!
Thank you so much for helping us start the year so strong. We hope to continue the momentum to make this year as memorable for our kids as the last.”
With gratitude,
Mr. Andy
The Gruffalo Books for Our Library Nook
Funded Jul 2, 2019Thank you so much for filling our library with these wonderful stories by Julia Donaldson. Our library is filled with classics from my own childhood but I also take pride in the new books that are sparking interest for the new generation. Books like the Gruffalo and the Gruffalo's Child are fantastic and filled with rhymes that keep our kids engaged and wanting more. Their thirst for these books are quenched when her other books are introduced.
We have fallen in love with the adventures of Stick Man, a stick who goes on an adventure trying to get back to his family. And Superworm, a worm who is super great but gets in trouble when a lizard wishes to take advantage of super worm's super skills. I love growing our library with new classics that our kids will grow up and share with others.
Your help is greatly appreciated. Although it may be hard for our children to express their gratitude, please know that they are showing the appreciation through the laughter and enjoyment when these books are read to them.”
With gratitude,
Mr. Andy
This classroom project was brought to life by Google.org and 5 other donors.75,600 Minutes: How Do We Measure Days of the Week?
Funded Aug 20, 2019I want to thank you so much for helping our classroom get a new beautiful wooden calendar. Time is such an abstract concept for our young students. Many of them are able to tell you how old they are but majority won't understand what that means. With our new calendar, we are able to learn our days of the week, months of the year, and embed number counting and recognition activities into our calendar routine.
We are able to count down the days left in the school year, birthdays and holidays. Our children will now understand the days we spend in school and the days that are considered weekends that they can spend with their families. Our calendar places a small part of our daily routine but it's something we use every day and helps our children grasp a concept in a way child friendly way. Thank you for helping us measure days of the week and so much more!”
With gratitude,
Mr. Andy
This classroom project was brought to life by Google.org and 4 other donors.A Thousand Words and Counting...
Funded May 23, 2019Pictures are worth a thousand words and they're priceless. The photos we have been able to take and print out with the photo printer we've received captures a moment in time that can never be recreated. These stills are evidence of great ideas, bonds between friends being created, and precious moments a child's parent may not witness in person.
However, because of the materials we've received, our parents can see the amazing things their children do in the classroom. As you walk through our school, you will not see generic posters on the wall with quotes. Instead, you will find photos of our children engaging in learning and acts of kindness displayed throughout the walls of our school.
When the children see themselves in the school, it's so much more impactful. They will go home, they will discuss all that has happened in the year and reflect on the good memories and great people they've met. Those discussions are worth more than a thousand words and the memories they've created here are priceless. Thank you for supporting this project. At the end of the year, when the tears are wiped away and we wait for the new journey ahead, we are proud to say that our kids had a great time and their parents were engaged and informed of what their child was doing in our school.”
With gratitude,
Mr. Andy
This classroom project was brought to life by Google.org and 24 other donors.Little Free Library, Where I See Me!
Funded Jun 10, 2019Every year, there's always children who LOVE to read books and listen to stories during read aloud but do not have access to their own books at home. It's disheartening to know that a child who loves books, aren't exposed to them at home because their parents cannot afford to buy them books or have the time and commitment to take them to the library. Seeing these cases year after year made me realize there are other families in our own community that may experience the same dilemma.
The Little Free Library gives the members of our community access to books to take home. We now have one directly in front of our school, one in our playground for our kids to read during recess, and we have established a partnership with our local botanical garden to house another library there so we can broaden our impact and give our community the gift of literacy.
We totally understand that many of the books we leave out there may never return. However, if the books that are left out are being used in homes that normally do not have access to books, then the purpose has been fulfilled. Over time, we would see new types of books that make its way to the lending library. These books come and go. Your support has brought new quality titles to the homes of children that desperately need and want to read them and two other locations to give access to books to our community. Thank you so much for helping our community appreciate the gift of literacy.”
With gratitude,
Mr. Andy
This classroom project was brought to life by Google.org and 3 other donors.A Thousand Words and So Much More...
Funded Jul 13, 2019Pictures are worth a thousand words and they're priceless. The photos we have been able to take and print out with the photo paper we've received captures a moment in time that can never be recreated. These stills are evidence of great ideas, bonds between friends being created, and precious moments a child's parent may not witness in person. However, because of the materials we've received, our parents can see the amazing things their children do in the classroom. At the end of the school year, these pictures are given to the families as a parting gift when they graduate from pre-K. When the photos go home, they can discuss all that has happened in the year and reflect on the good memories and great people they've met. Those discussions are worth more than a thousand words and the memories they've created here are priceless. Thank you for supporting this project. At the end of the year, when the tears are wiped away and we wait for the new journey ahead, we are proud to say that our kids had a great time and their parents were engaged and informed of what their child was doing in the classroom.”
With gratitude,
Mr. Andy
This classroom project was brought to life by Google.org and 2 other donors.Real Life Fortnite: Engineering in the Real World
Funded Apr 5, 2019Thank you again for helping us bring "Real Life Fortnite: Engineering in the Real World" to life. Having a toddler of my own, I have come to realize that most children do not need fancy toys. Imagine buying quality toys that are expensive for your child, only to find them more interested in the Amazon box it arrived in. Boxes can provide days of imaginative play for our kids. Once they break, we often salvage what remains to go into our art center.
The idea behind this project stemmed from the popular video game Fortnite. Players gather resources to build forts and try to survive. Without getting into the main aspect of the game, I thought the concept of building forts was very interesting. Our kids LOVE to build. If we provided them with pipes, connectors, and bed sheets, who knows what they could come up with. Our kids loved the idea of connecting pieces together to create enclosures that were divided up by sheets. Once the had the idea down, it was amazing to see what else they could come up with. Drawing from inspirations of our custodian, Mr. Javier, our kids would often see him pushing a dust mop around. Using our pipes and connectors, many of our kids became Mr. Javier as they created their own mops to push and clean our classroom. I absolutely love these kind of ideas our children conjure up. It's one of the main reasons why I posted this project. Kids can create something from seemingly nothing. Thanks to you, our kids have these wonderful abstract materials they can put their imaginations to use. Thank you so much for that.”
With gratitude,
Mr. Andy
This classroom project was brought to life by AT&T and 11 other donors.Thank You, Next!
Funded May 13, 2019The 2018-2019 school year was such an incredible year for my students and me. So many different things played a role in making it special. Our group of kids were the kindest and friendliest bunch I've ever had the pleasure of teaching. I needed to make the end of year special with a gift of literacy. Many of our students LOVE the Elephant and Piggie series. They love listening to it over and over. It was the perfect gift to have a collection of 5 stories for our kids to keep at home.
The end of year celebration was amazing and bittersweet. I will miss all of my students and because of our support, we gave them something to remember us for a long time. Our families were so appreciate of all the things that happened this year up until the very last moment when we said goodbye for the last time. Your help allowed us to properly thank your students and their families and also helped us look forward to what the future has to offer. Thank you for allowing us to say, "Thank you, Next!"”
With gratitude,
Mr. Andy
This classroom project was brought to life by SONIC Drive-In and 4 other donors.#RepresentationMatters: Seeing Ourselves in the Books We Read
Funded Feb 28, 2019Thank you so much for helping us get the materials for #RepresentationMatters: Seeing Ourselves in the Books We Read. These are more than just books for our students. For so long, our classroom library has been stocked with great books, however, the books were only windows to see into the stories, cultures, families, and communities of people who do not represent our diverse demographic.
With your generous support, we are able to provide our students with books that serve as mirrors which reflect their own lives. They are seeing themselves represented in books and that makes a very powerful statement about who we are. I am also seeing my own childhood and family structure represented because my students and I share the same community. I read Apple Pie 4th of July to my students and it connected so well with them. They are 4-5 years old and they were able to make connections to the story because many of them have parents who work in restaurants and rarely take days off. We shared that connection because, like them, my parents worked really long hours. Like them, they rarely see their parents and it doesn't get us sad or upset at them because it is all we know.
Thank you for these books. They are more than just books. They are stories that we can relate to and develop a deeper connection with each other and our families.
Two of my students have parents who work out of state. One girl sees her mother once a week because on her only day off, she will visit and see her baby girl. It isn't a lot of time but they make the best of it. Another student has both of his parents work a restaurant, and they rarely take a day off. If they are lucky, they see their children once or twice a year. Imagine only reading stories about families that see each other everyday and fit the "standard" or "normal" family structure when you rarely get to see your parents. You'll begin to wonder why you can't see mom or dad everyday. I know this because I was in their situation 25 years ago. I wish I had a book that I could relate to. Although I did not, I am able to provide that for my students thanks to you.
Representation matters. The statement holds true for movies, television, and books. You helped show them that. I am grateful for your support. When our students grow up and think back about the books read in their pre-K classroom, they'll think of the classics by Eric Carle, Mo Willems, Kevin Henkes, etc. But they will also think about the authors and stories that told the stories that reflected their childhood.”
With gratitude,
Mr. Andy
This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose.org Community and 21 other donors.