Past projects 8
Headphones for the Classroom
Funded Sep 13, 2021Thank you so much for supporting my project!
I apologize for the delay in thanking you. My home life has been rough this past year.
Your support allows each of my students to have their own headphones. We keep them in my classroom and I share them with my teammates.
Having headphones allows fir seamless differentiating. I use lots of videos to teach science. I can assign an Edpuzzle to each student based on their learning ability. Edpuzzle allows teachers to upload videos and insert questions throughout the video. This helps students stay engaged. The headphones you helped purchase allow for this.
Thank you for supporting my project!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Koch
HEADPHONES For SCIENCE
Funded Sep 16, 2020I am so happy that you were able to help fund my project! At the beginning of the year, our district provided students with earbuds. However, they are starting to get broken. Having these headphones will allow my students to use websites with videos, and have text read to them. This is huge for my lower achieving students!
Thank you so much for your generosity! I hope that in a few more years, I am able to donate to other teacher's donor choose projects!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Koch
This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose 20th Anniversary Fund and 5 other donors.Coming Back Ready to Learn!
Funded Jul 27, 2020Thank you so very much! My students will be so happy to receive these items and be ready for whatever the year brings! They will have supplies for in school and remote learning. Your generosity is greatly appreciated. My students will be thrilled to share pictures of their supplies! Bless you!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Koch
This classroom project was brought to life by Kleenex® Brand and one other donor.Restocking Time!
Funded Feb 15, 2020Thank you for your generosity! My students will really appreciate this! Especially the scissors! We do lots of cutting with our interactive notebooks. The scissors will be much more comfortable for my students to use. I've never tried an electric pencil sharpener. I hope it doesn't eat pencils like the one on my wall does! Thank you again!!!!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Koch
Interactive Volume and Pitch Tools!
Funded Jan 24, 2020Thank you for recognizing the importance of these concepts. These hands on tools will go far in helping my students be successful in learning these concepts.
The concepts seem easy to adults, but my students mix them up. Now I'll be able to refer to the hands on activity when reviewing!
Thank you so much for your generosity!!!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Koch
This classroom project was brought to life by Anonymous Arts Supporter and 4 other donors.Listening to Science
Funded May 13, 2019Many of our 5th-grade students are a year or more below grade level in their reading ability. However, most Science text is written at the 5th-grade level. As a result, students are struggling with the new content as well as the reading ability. Many studies show that students understand the text above their reading level if it is read orally. I have been able to find text that has the ability to have it read aloud. Students are able to read and have the text read orally to them. This increases their comprehension. By reading it on their own, students are able to rewind the text to have it read again. If they have questions about the text to answer, students are able to go back to the text at their speed and find the answers to questions.
Thank you for sharing your resources to allow my students to have quality headphones to listen to the text read orally!!!!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Koch
This classroom project was brought to life by Craig Newmark Philanthropies and one other donor.Electronics Break!
Funded Oct 23, 2019Our students are fortunate enough to have their own Chromebooks. Which as teachers we have a love/struggle with relationship! While we love the ability for them to access things outside of their little world, we also recognize that the students would much rather just game with the Chromebooks.
Recess is the time of day in which students can freely interact with each other. The issue is that they just want to play digital games. While I had some board games, the students weren't that interested in them. I wanted games for them to play specifically during our indoor recess times that were interactive. The games I found were variations of Jenga and cornhole. Jenga is a larger game that I have broken into two sections. Other games are more traditional games.
In the beginning, our students whined when we told them no electronics. However, they quickly realized that there were lots of other fun things to do. Between the large games that I found and the yard sale items, we found - like Twister - students find lots of things to do that are non-electronic. Every student is participating in one game or another. Even if they are just watching, they are involved.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Koch
This classroom project was brought to life by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and 7 other donors.5th Graders Racing Cars
Funded Jul 30, 2017The excitement level was through the roof all day long in the 5th Grade at Mt Orab Middle School!!! Our students had each received their own car to design, test, and finally RACE!!! They couldn't wait to watch their cars go down the track. When they arrived in the gym, they saw a race track, with racing flags around it, a projector and screen, and parent volunteers ready to help! The cars they designed were safely in the pit ready to go. The first cars rolled down the ramp and that was exciting in and of itself. Then they saw the name of the person who came in first place, and cheered with excitement! That for me was one of the greatest moments. Listening to them cheer on their classmates and then cheering the winners! The emotions running through me were ones of pure excitement and pride.
In our classes, the other 5th grade Science teacher, Mrs. Cook and myself had been conducting lessons on how weight and weight distribution effect how a car rolls. We had made ramps, conducted experiments, gathered data and come to conclusions. Now it was time to see if they were able to connect the classroom activities to a real world experience. We opened up the box of cars and showed them the block of wood they would start with. Oh my the designs they were coming up with were phenomenal! Some were disappointed when I told them that they would only be using sandpaper and not their parent's woodworking tools. They finally understood that not everyone has a coping saw at their house. We spent three days sanding away. Thankfully it was gorgeous outside and so we went outside to sand. They could sit with their friends and talk. The conversations of course were quite varied, but lots of conversation was about their designs. I had lots of students tell me how much fun they were having sanding (I think that was because they knew they didn't have a worksheet to do!). It was awesome to watch the creativity of our students come into play. We had announced that their would be awards for creativity. The students had come up with some suggestions of the categories they wanted to compete in. Then they began designing the Most Patriotic Car, the Most Edible Car, the Coolest car etc. Pennies were added to cars to increase their weight and practice runs down a piece of plywood began. The excitement grew! Then it was RACE day!
After the race we continued discussing Force and Motion, part of the Ohio Next Generation Standards for Science. We were able to refer back to the cars on a regular basis. All of our students had had that experience so they could now have a real life experience to relate to which most of my students would never had received. The feed back from our students was all positive. They had some suggestions for next year. I know they will share this experience with next year's class. With any luck and some funding we will be able to participate in this activity again. Thank you again for your support of this project and other teacher's projects.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Koch
This classroom project was brought to life by Duke Energy - Ohio and Kentucky and 13 other donors.