Past projects 68
The Basics for Happy and Healthy Students!
Funded Aug 1, 2019Thank you times a million for your support in funding this project! It was such a relief to start the year with secured basic supplies. Families try their best to complete the school supply list, but due to busy schedules and lack of funds, it is unpredictable how much of each school supply we will have as a class. Thanks to your support, we had (and still have) a stockpile of tissues, soap, Lysol wipes, and other supplies that will keep our classroom running smoothly.
When a student first said, "I'm hungry" at the beginning of the school year, I felt so relieved that I could provide them with a snack instead of trying to soothe them and tell them to wait patiently for lunch. If you've ever tried to focus and learn with an empty stomach, you understand how difficult it is. With this project, students could engage in fun and messy STEM activities, drawing math models on their desks (learning is so much more fun when you can draw on your desk!), and so much more while not having to worry about a growling stomach. For all of the positive change you have created by supporting this project and our classroom, thank you!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Cosans
This classroom project was brought to life by The Clorox Company and 2 other donors.Cashing in at the Carnival!
Funded Apr 25, 2019There was so much suspense in the room once students knew that the multiple Carnival supply boxes had arrived. A collective hush filled the room, and then the exclamations thundered. "Woah! What is that? When does the carnival start?! How many tickets do I need for that?!" echoed from every corner of the room. My students, who had been showing fatigue from the nonstop assessments to gauge for predicted state testing pass-rates, had a renewed energy. We opened the supplies, and I told them that the carnival would start two days later.
When I tell you that I had never seen my students so motivated, I am not exaggerating. This carnival idea literally transformed test preparation for my students - they were engaged in the activities, helped out their classmates, used test-taking strategies, and worked hard to practice every skill. Their faces lit up every time they earned a ticket for teamwork, strategies, and persistence. They spent every afternoon anxiously counting how many tickets they had collected from the day, brainstorming what they could spend their tickets on, and if they should save them for the next day (because the prize they had been eyeing might even go on sale). This project truly embodied classroom engagement, and I could not have made that happen without your support. I am so extremely thankful for your support in making this amazing opportunity for my students a reality.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Cosans
This classroom project was brought to life by Charles Schwab Foundation and 3 other donors.Help Ease the Headphone Headache!
Funded Apr 3, 2019The headache of cheap, broken headphones that filled this year was cured with these generously funded headphones! The day after the package arrived at school, a student walked up with completely battered headphones that had lasted up until this point, and said, "Ms. Lock, I know we don't have any extra pairs...but could I borrow your spare headphones for this station?" The look of happiness that appeared when the student got to choose a color for their brand new headphones was PRICELESS! I loved students exclaiming, "Wow! These are so LOUD!" while working on various technology programs to boost their understanding of content. It was music to my ears!
These headphones greatly impacted the day-to-day tasks my students needed to accomplish while working on computers. Watching 1-minute history review videos about Jamestown, jamming out to funky music play while practicing their multiplication and division facts on Reflex Math, and hearing nonfiction texts and questions read aloud on i-Ready Reading to boost comprehension were some of the ways that these headphones were used. The best news? These headphones were SO durable that they lasted the entire rest of the year! The amount of headphones funded was plenty for every broken pair of headphones to be replaced, and for there to be plenty for this coming year's class! This project was absolutely incredible for our classroom - we are so thankful! Thank you times a million!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Cosans
This classroom project was brought to life by Verizon and 8 other donors.An iPad for Engaging Stations!
Funded Dec 28, 2018This iPad was an absolute game-changer for my classroom stations and impacted students in more ways than I ever imagined possible! Technology is so wonderful, but unfortunately I came in to first year of teaching with very little of my classroom technology working. Due to your amazing generosity, my classroom was able to have a piece of technology that was exclusively ours - no sharing with what felt like a million other classrooms for undisclosed periods of time! Students took so much pride in the fact that this iPad was, as they put it, "only for Ms. Lock's class" and showed excellent care for this fun new gadget!
The iPad's capability to quickly access targeted applications for the Mathematics, Language Arts, and Virginia Studies curriculum made a huge difference in my students' success this school year with not only state testing scores, but also their deeper understanding of the curriculum. In addition to these programs used for the core subjects, I was also able to provide specialized differentiation with an app called Teach Your Monster To Read to help a new student strengthen his phonics and early reading skills! Because this iPad was funded, I was able to purchase the app (I would not have been able to do this on a regular school laptop) and the new student was receiving additional support straight from this technology! I could go on and on about how transformative this iPad has been for our classroom, but our feelings can best be summed up in two words - THANK YOU!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Cosans
This classroom project was brought to life by Verizon and 6 other donors.We'd Love a Few Lap Desks!
Funded Feb 26, 2019Lap desks for the win! This nifty flexible seating option sure created a buzz in our classroom! Opening the humongous box that the lap desks were packaged in was huge event, and all of my students immediately were more interested in their afternoon station work! "Can I work on a lap desk?" was asked at least three times daily! These lap desks provide a relatively spacious work area for students to use for class assignments, station work, and even during lessons when students need to be closer to the instruction. We have gotten use of these lap desks from the first day they were opened until today, the last day of school! Two of my favorite things about these lap desks are that they are super easy to clean, and compact enough to store essentially anywhere. Thanks to the Lysol wipes that were also funded in this project, no additional steps are needed for cleaning! Lap desks have been such a blessing to my classroom. Thank you so much for supporting my students in their learning!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Cosans
Reboot Our Room!
Funded Dec 28, 2018This project was a serious breath of fresh air for our room! While school supplies are stocked and shiny in September, they seriously start to dwindle around Christmas break! I am so thankful that this project was made possible as a reboot for our class. When students came back from winter break, they were greeted by new, exciting texts in our library, fresh sticky notes, and "juicy" highlighters (as the students remarked)! "The Book With no Pictures" was such a hit once students were daring enough to give it a try, and "The Meltdown" was a long-awaited graphic novel that made my students gasp when they saw it on our shelf! It was the first classroom text that we actually had to make a book waiting list for! The highlighters, as you can see in the shared photos, were put to great use. In fourth grade, students are required to do a lot of critical thinking about texts they read, and we have worked really hard this year to support answers with evidence. These highlighters gave students a little boost of excitement while citing their evidence! These simple materials make a huge impact, on how the classroom ran, and injected excitement and engagement into our day-to-day activities. Thanks to you, our classroom was able to run more smoothly. We are so grateful!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Cosans
Infusing Curriculum With Visual Arts!
Funded Oct 7, 2018It's a well-known fact that paper is important to an elementary school classroom - that's how this project came to be. The packages of paper actually arrived at the perfect time - we were running out of paper in nearly every color! For morning work the day after the paper arrived, my students made thank-you cards for staff in the building; not only were they excited about the color selection no longer being depleted, they were also excited to get right to work using the materials in a meaningful way.
With SOL testing, bi-weekly exams, regular spelling tests, and the overall data-driven culture that exists in schools today, my students don't always get the most exciting lessons (it's just how it is). However, a pop of color seriously makes a difference in engagement and the overall joy factor! When my students see that they get to make a foldable in Virginia Studies on blue, green, or yellow cardstock instead of simply taking notes, they always get more excited than I expect. Creating projects and gluing them onto construction paper for a pop of color has inspired so many of my students to take a little extra care in their work. Even the Clorox wipes get my students excited! Around dismissal time, a huge hit in my classroom has been the "dirtiest wipe game" which is basically a fun way to get the students to thoroughly clean off all of our hard surfaces in the room!
I can't express my gratitude enough, but I hope that I showed just a glimpse within these paragraphs of how much your contribution to our classroom means to us. These materials have helped my students be creative and I can't wait to see all of the awesome things we do with them. This project has not only infused visual arts into our curriculum - it has infused joy!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Cosans
This classroom project was brought to life by An Anonymous Arts Funder and 2 other donors.Kick-Start Our Classroom!
Funded Aug 14, 2018Often, the smallest things in life have the biggest impact. Starting the school year with materials such as a classroom rug, clipboards, dry erase boards, and popular graphic novels have made a world of difference in our classroom. Not only did these items help give us a great kick-start for the year, but they have continued to have a tremendous impact on our learning. Group work, high-interest experiences, and highly engaging activities have been made possible continuously because of your support in our classroom. I wish you could have been there to see the looks on the students' faces when I explained that we had an entire set of Diary of a Wimpy Kid books - pure delight!
One of the most amazing results of this project has been the amount of community provided from the classroom rug. I love having the students gather for read-alouds, group work, and classroom discussions. The students feel safe and heard on this space, and it was made possible because of you. We cannot thank you enough for your generosity!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Cosans