Past projects 254
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.Disconnect to Connect: Going Screen Free at Home
Funded Feb 3, 2019Thank you so much for being patient for this thank you package to be complete. I wanted this to be done right and we needed to wait for the perfect opportunity for a family engagement event. That family engagement time was today, during our final parent teacher conferences. Families were invited to come by after school for a family workshop to discover new and innovative activities to engage with their children that does not involve a screen.
We just completed a screen free week challenge but that doesn't mean to go back to being connected via phones, tablets, computers and television. We want our families to believe in disconnecting so they can connect on a personal level. Our families browsed through our new wealth of resources and found new ideas to create, play, and discuss with their children. It was such an amazing experience to see our parents make beautiful art projects with their children, mothers and daughters testing out new science experiments. Children didn't want to leave and loved looking through our recyclable materials to find new ways to create. The event lasted an hour and thirty minutes but it felt like it breezed by. Parents and children had such an amazing time. These books will be a part of our class for years to come. These kind of events will allow our children Disconnect to Connect and go screen free at home. Thank you for helping us accomplish this!”
With gratitude,
Mr. Andy
A Thousand Words and Counting...
Funded Jan 19, 2019Thank you so much for supporting A Thousand Words and Counting...Photo paper and photo printer isn't a resource that is flashy to show off a student using. The supplies are often stored away in a closet and used when needed and it's needed every day. Our pre-K program has a special board that engages parents to see what we are doing every day. Our amazing paraprofessional, Helen, takes photos every day and print pictures, writes captions, and changes the board on a daily basis. It welcomes our parents to see what is happening in our classroom without being in the classroom.
These pictures are priceless and we are so grateful for your support to keep our paper stocked. At the end of the year, families get a stack of over 100 photos to bring home and reflect on the amazing year they had in pre-K. Thank you so much for giving our families over a thousand words to spark conversation.”
With gratitude,
Mr. Andy
More Than Just a Book
Funded Mar 6, 2019Thank you again for helping us fill our classroom with more amazing books! We have concluded such an amazing water study and it would not have been possible without the books we have received from this project. One of the lines in the book described evaporation as "Thirsty air licks water up into the sky." And it was a concept that stuck with our kids. Everything related to water could be applied with that one line.
The Diane Alber books have been such a wonderful inspiration for our students to create artwork. A story about a few splatter of paint showed our kids how to discover new kinds of color through mixing. Not Just a Scribble gave our students confidence in their drawings. And Snippet showed them that even the undefined shapes made from snipping paper could be used to create something beautiful.
All of these books from the wonderful selection of authors are more than just a book. They are life lessons that teach our students about difficult concepts made easier to understand through the eyes of a child. Thank you so much for supporting our project. These books will be used over and over again and will impact more than just our current group.”
With gratitude,
Mr. Andy
This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose.org Community and 11 other donors.Jedi Academy: Training Through Technology!
Funded Oct 16, 2018Young Jedi Academy started as a dream to bring Star Wars into the classroom. Children who have never seen the movies or read any of the works of literature still wish to become part of the Jedi Academy. Every year we strive to do something unique and different from the after school academy. In the previous years, we focused on light saber choreography, helping the planet by reducing, reusing, and recycling waste, programming droids, and this year we are training with technology.
The technology you have helped us get has allowed us to focus on a bit of everything we have done in the past. The VR set has strengthened our reflexes and lightsaber forms as we engaged in simulated battles against fierce Sith Lords and Storm Troopers. We have created something from nothing when we are building with cardboard and programming and coding with our Switch Console.
This year's group of Younglings, some returning and some brand new, are always excited to enter through our academy doors when after school starts. Thank you so much for giving our children something new to look forward to every year.
May the Force be with you!”
With gratitude,
Mr. Andy
This classroom project was brought to life by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and 12 other donors.Our Kids Need to Know More About H2O!
Funded Aug 2, 2018Thank you again for supporting Our Kids Need to Know More About H2O! Water is something we use every day and take for granted. When this project was funded in the summer, our campers had a preview of what the materials would be used for. Boiling water for our play dough recipe, clean drinking water thanks to the Brita filter, and clean dramatic play clothes thanks to the manual washing machine.
Fast forward to now and the fascination with water started with a leaky bathroom faucet that caught the concern with a large group of our kids. "Water is being wasted!" They would say. The impact was felt when the water was turned off and we could only use our classroom sink. We started to realize the importance of water and discussed what else we use water for, where it comes from, and why it is so important. From drinking, to cleaning, to playing, and so many other uses, our kids have started to see why water is such an important resource we use on a daily basis, all because a faucet was broken. Thanks to the materials received from this project, our children have come to appreciate water and the ways we use it.
Thank you for showing our students the importance of water and to appreciate it more than ever before.”
With gratitude,
Mr. Andy
Learning a New Language While Keeping Our Cultural Identity
Funded Aug 22, 2018Thank you so much for helping us reach our goal for this project. This past year has been incredible for representation in media. There has been a big push for racial equity in our school and this project seems to have been ahead of its time. Language is such a big part of our students' identity. However, in the past, it seems as if students were almost ashamed to speak their home language. Learning a second or even a third language is incredible. I want our students to see that their home language is appreciated in our classroom.
Walk into PreK classroom and you'll see signs written in English and Mandarin. We want parents and students to feel welcomed and to show them their language has a place in our classroom. Now thanks to the Chineasy resource and other language tools, our students are learning English and keeping their home language skills sharp as they play these games in dual languages. Even the teachers in the classroom are becoming language learners as they are learning vocabulary in a different language. Thank you again for your support in helping our students keep their cultural identity.”
With gratitude,
Mr. Andy
This classroom project was brought to life by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and 11 other donors.No More Being Bored Thanks to Board Games!
Funded Nov 16, 2018Thank you so much for supporting our parent engagement/involvement project "No More Being Bored Thanks to Board Games!" This is the second year we held a parent engagement event and it was, again, a big success. The Pigeon matching game was given out to all of our students' families. We had spent a few weeks prior to the event discussing games and learning how to play the matching game. Not only did our children learn the rules of the game and how to play, they learned how to take turns, socialize, develop language skills as well. When a friend successfully found a match, everyone playing congratulated them saying "Great Job! Go again!" If they were unsuccessful, they were still encouraged as others would say "Nice try!"
During the parent engagement event, we saw so many families come together to play a variety of board games with their friends and family. Brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, all came that day during parent engagement time. They took a step back from the busy, chaotic, fast paced world to take a moment to spend quality time together. They bonded over board games. In the end, every family took home a Pigeon matching game so the bonding can happen at home as well. You made this possible. I may never know what it feels like to be a millionaire and that's totally fine. I chose this profession to make an impact in the lives of children and their families through education. With your amazing support and help, I was able to achieve it for this group of families. This event was truly heartwarming as I watched families engage in conversation and play with each other. Thank you so much for making this event such a success. There will be more events like this to come!”
With gratitude,
Mr. Andy