Past projects 16
Student Led Book Clubs
Funded Jan 26, 2018Something truly magical happens when students read and discuss a shared text. They are able to come together in community with their peers, sharing their thoughts, connections, and experiences with the text in a way that they do not in other educational settings. In our classrooms, we offer students choice during their reading. This greatly improves student engagement but limits the experience of a shared text.
We have now had two meetings of our student led book club, with over 30 students from different grades and learning communities participating. Students have taken the lead in choosing which books to read when and what to discuss at the book club meetings. I have been incredibly impressed with the level of discourse happening at the meetings. Students are connecting with the texts and their peers in a way that simply doesn't happen on a daily basis in the classroom. We are looking forward to student led book clubs becoming a lasting tradition at our school.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Carrie
This classroom project was brought to life by The First Million Fund and 8 other donors.Student Led Book Clubs
Funded Jan 25, 2018Something truly magical happens when students read and discuss a shared text. They are able to come together in community with their peers, sharing their thoughts, connections, and experiences with the text in a way that they do not in other educational settings. In our classrooms, we offer students choice during their reading. This greatly improves student engagement but limits the experience of a shared text.
We have now had two meetings of our student led book club, with over 30 students from different grades and learning communities participating. Students have taken the lead in choosing which books to read when and what to discuss at the book club meetings. I have been incredibly impressed with the level of discourse happening at the meetings. Students are connecting with the texts and their peers in a way that simply doesn't happen on a daily basis in the classroom. We are looking forward to student led book clubs becoming a lasting tradition at our school.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Carrie
This classroom project was brought to life by The First Million Fund and 5 other donors.Student Chosen High Interest Books
Funded Dec 8, 2017One of the many wonderful things about teaching middle school students is that they are beginning to develop a strong sense of themselves and their interests. Many of my students know exactly what kind of books they like to read, and motivating them to read is as simple and making sure that those books get into their hands. In their otherwise busy lives, daily silent reading time offers students a chance to unplug and truly focus on one activity. Many of my students find a little nook or a spot on the floor to curl up with a good book, reminding me that they still maintain that childhood sense of wonder that comes from reading, even as they try to rush into adolescence.
Providing students with choice reading time has been shown time and again to increase students engagement and performance. Students are able to select a book that is not only at their level but is high interest. By 7th and 8th grade, student reading levels and interests vary so much that it is difficult to find a single text that relates to each student in the class. Increasing the variety of book available in our classroom is already benefiting students by providing more choice.
The books from this project filled a few gaps in our classroom library. Two of the most engaging genres for my students are horror and sports books. Previously, we only had a few horror and sports books, and the reading level of those books was either too easy or too challenging to make them engaging for the majority of my students. With the completion of this project, we have added significantly to the number of these books in our library and greatly increased the variety of reading levels. Additionally, one of the best ways to get a student reading is by finding them a series to read, as it provides them as many as seven books to read just by finding one that they enjoy. My students are always seeking to read whatever is the new and popular series. The series that this project has added to our library are flying off the shelves, with students anxiously awaiting their turn to read them.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Carrie
This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose.org Community and 6 other donors.Graphic Novels for Aspiring Readers
Funded Mar 29, 2017Providing students with choice reading time has been shown time and again to increase students engagement and performance. Students are able to select a book that is not only at their level, but is high interest. Graphic novels are a great way to engage students who are otherwise reluctant readers or give our avid readers a wider variety of genres to choose from. Graphic novels promote visual literacy, a key skill for students to develop in order to be successful with digital and print media.
One of the many wonderful things about teaching middle school is that students have held onto their childhood love of reading. Often, I walk into class and say, "Today, we're starting with reading time!" and several students cheer. Students quickly run to the shelves, select a book, and settle down to read. In their otherwise busy lives, daily silent reading time offers students a chance to unplug and truly focus on one activity. Many of my students find a little nook or a spot on the floor to curl up with a good book, reminding me that they still maintain that childhood sense of wonder that comes from reading, even as they try to rush into adolescence.
The books from this project filled a few gaps in our classroom library and increased the number of graphic novels available for students. Graphic novels are not only engaging to students, but require them to approach a text in a different way, building the skill of finding implicit meaning in a text. The graphic novels we received cover a wide variety of genres, from sports to realistic fiction, historical fiction, and fantasy. In these graphic novels, students are able to see characters that they relate to, further increasing their engagement in the books. Finally, we received several series of graphic novels. When a student finds a series, they have several books to read once they find one that interests them, increasing the amount of time they spend reading.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Carrie
This classroom project was brought to life by Aspect Ventures and 6 other donors.Urban Montessori Discovers North Woods
Funded Feb 16, 2017Our trip to the Audubon Center of the North Woods was two months ago, and students are still talking about it! For all but a few of our students, traveling out of the city and spending time in the woods was a new and exciting experience. Every student stepped up, participating in all the activities with enthusiasm and interest in learning something new.
One of the highlights of this trip for students was experiencing nighttime without the lights and noise they experience in the city. On the first night there, we took the students on a night hike. For many of our students, they had never been in the woods at night and experiencing it without their flashlights on was both exciting and frightening. We ended up taking two night hikes on the first night. On the first hike, most of our students participated. Energy was high, and flashlights were on; this pushed many of our students outside of their comfort zone. The second night hike that night allowed students to experience the woods as they were. We hiked in silence and darkness, focusing on senses other than sight to find our way through the woods. Upon returning to camp, students sat in the field and silently watched the stars. Many students were looking up at the right moment to catch a shooting star cross the sky.
Since returning to school, students have participated in a variety of activities surrounding their learning at the Audubon center. For example, all students participated in a seminar discussion of their experience. Because we had students who chose not to attend our trip to the woods and participated in similar activities back at school, this seminar was an excellent opportunity for students to share their learning with their classmates.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Carrie
Technology to Increase Cooperative Learning
Funded Nov 15, 2016Technology use in schools today is constantly changing and evolving. However, one constant is that, when used effectively, technology can greatly increase student achievement. A document camera is a piece of classroom technology that can be used to actively engage students in the learning process. Document cameras benefit all learners. In particular, visual learners are benefiting from the use of a classroom document camera by seeing small items, text, demonstrations in a much bigger way. Additionally, hands-on learners benefit from the use of a document camera by allowing them to be the ones placing objects or items under the document camera and explaining what they are showing.
Students have been very excited about the clear image this document camera creates. Our previous method of projecting images onto the board was using the iPad camera, and the image was often to blurry for students to see from the back of the room. Students have also really enjoyed that this document camera is wireless. It can move to student desks in order to project their work onto the board. They have really enjoyed being able to share their work
Thank you for helping out classroom become a more productive and inclusive environment!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Carrie
Create a High Interest Classroom Library
Funded Nov 3, 2016One of the many wonderful things about teaching 6th grade in middle school is that students have held onto their childhood love of reading. Often, I walk into class and say, "Today, we're starting with reading time!" and several students cheer. Students quickly run to the shelves, select a book, and settle down to read. In their otherwise busy lives, daily silent reading time offers students a chance to unplug and truly focus on one activity. Many of my students find a little nook or a spot on the floor to curl up with a good book, reminding me that they still maintain that childhood sense of wonder that comes from reading, even as they try to rush into adolescence.
Providing students with choice reading time has been shown time and again to increase students engagement and performance. Students are able to select a book that is not only at their level, but is high interest. By 6th grade, student reading levels and interests vary so much that it is difficult to find a single text that relates to each student in the class. Increasing the variety of book available in our classroom is already benefiting students by providing more choice.
The books from this project filled a few gaps in our classroom library. One of the most engaging genres for my students is books about sports. Previously, we only had a few sports books, and the reading level of those books was too challenging to make them engaging for the majority of my students. With the completion of this project, we have more than tripled the number of sports books in our library and greatly increased the variety of reading levels. Several of the sports books fall into another category that was missing, graphic novels. Graphic novels are not only engaging to students, but require them to approach a text in a different way, building the skill of finding implicit meaning in a text. Finally, one of the best ways to get a student reading is by finding them a series to read, as it provides them as many as seven books to read just by finding one that they enjoy. Previously, our classroom library did not have any complete series. With this project, we now have ten complete series of books for students to read.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Carrie