Past projects 104
The Future Generation Begins with Technology
Funded Mar 27, 2018My students may be young but they are tech savvy. They are the generation of playing on tablets and phones. It is a great opportunity for the students to learn through play with tablets in an educational situation. I am giving my students opportunities to be part of the 21 century by acquiring pre coding skills, even in Pre Kindergarten.
The 2 pre coding programs we use are Scratch Junior, which is a program developed by engineers at MIT. This program lets children code, not just play games. The other program is Code Karts. This is more popular, since it is a car race where the car moves on a road.
During class time the students have an opportunity to use the tablets for 15 minutes. That is the amount of time recommended by the division of Early Childhood .
The students work independently or with a partner. Working together promotes social skills, especially at this young age.
I have a few special needs students in my class who really appreciate the additional academic support with the tablets. As well, is interesting to watch my English Language Learners navigating the technology with such ease. They are learning everyday English and pre coding skills and building their self esteem too.
Thank you for being part of the Donors Choose Community.”
With gratitude,
Ms. B
This classroom project was brought to life by Verizon and 3 other donors.Exercise & Young Minds Too
Funded Mar 27, 2018It is the spring in NYC and we have many rainy days. We can't go out to the playground, so we are exercise and do gross motor activities in the hallway. My students are so excited when the packages arrived for our new indoor/outdoor gross motor equipment. I am totally amazed at their excitement at the new games. They absolutely love the Rocking See Saws. The kids line up and wait (relatively) patiently to get a chance to balance on the see saws.
Right now in our classroom, we are our unit is animals. We are studying different adult animals and their babies. The students are having fun with the Hop Along Balls, pretending they are rabbits and kangaroos.
The Swing and Catch game is a great game to promote more hand eye coordination, something that is needed for future sports activities.
The students are really very excited. I am trying to have them understand that we have a secret angel, the "Donors Choose" donors. The angels make this happen by donating to classrooms. I sent home an email to the parents, letting them know about our secret angels and our new equipment. The parents are in awe and so appreciative that you went out of your way to make a difference in our students well being and education.
Thank you again for your generous donations.”
With gratitude,
Ms. B
This classroom project was brought to life by ESPN and 3 other donors.Pre Coding Skills In Pre K
Funded Mar 9, 2018My students may be young but they are tech savvy. They are the generation of playing on tablets and phones. It is a great opportunity for the students to learn through play with tablets in an educational situation. I am giving my students opportunities to be part of the 21 century by acquiring pre coding skills, even in Pre Kindergarten.
The 2 pre coding programs we use are Scratch Junior, which is a program developed by engineers at MIT. This program lets children code, not just play games. The other program is Code Karts. This is more popular, since it is a car race where the car moves on a road.
During class time the students have an opportunity to use the tablets for 15 minutes. That is the amount of time recommended by the division of Early Childhood .
The students work independently or with a partner. Working together promotes social skills, especially at this young age.
I have a few special needs students in my class who really appreciated the additional academic support with the tablets. It is interesting to watch my English Language Learners navigating the technology with such ease.
Thank you for being part of the Donors Choose Community.”
With gratitude,
Ms. B
This classroom project was brought to life by Verizon and 6 other donors.Aspiring Young Writers
Funded Feb 4, 2018The children were really excited when we had a grand opening of the "new and improved" writing area. Now, the writing area is organized with shelving for different stationary, hole punchers, pencils, etc.. The writing area is always occupied with children drawing and writing together. The children are excited with the gel boards to practice writing letters and their names. The materials that you contributed to our class, help the children have choices writing with different mediums and materials. They can write on paper or they can use the gel boards or the magic boards. The gel boards attract the children because they erase easily. It seems magical and it certainly is a unique way to practice writing our letters and names. The magic boards are exciting too, because they are also a unique way to write.
When the children saw the materials, they were all excited. Everyone wanted to immediately go to the writing area. I had to set up extra tables with all the writing materials. We had morning of writing and everyone was writing! When I took the photo of a group of children holding their new spiral bound journals, a child who was not in the photo asked me if he had a journal too. I said, "of course!" He was so excited. The children love the real journals. Now, they feel like real writers.
Our current unit is on light. After a read aloud , we are drawing and writing about facts we learned about light. One day we wrote about the sun. They next journal entry was about shadows. We are planting seeds. We planted peas and petunias in a large planter. We are keeping one planter in the classroom at the science table. The other planter is in the closet. Our mini experiment: How does light effect a plant and it's growth? The children will be recording the progress of the plants in their journal.
Thank so you much for your contribution to our classroom. We are truly humbled by your generosity.”
With gratitude,
Ms. B
Stem: Water Exploration!
Funded Jan 1, 2018Thank you so much for your generous donation. Now, the students have water proof aprons which really make water play more accessible, all the months of the school year. Before, we only opened the water table during the spring.
Now, the water table is open daily. Even though we don't have a working faucet in our classroom, it is worth it to carry the water from the faucet down the hall. It's all about the children and their learning experiences.
The water table activities are exciting and the new toys are STEM related. The children are working together and helping one another. I hear a lot of interesting language and conversation happening at the water table. The children are sharing ideas and learning from one another. One child was resourceful enough to look at the box for ideas about construction.
The water table/sensory area has become so popular. All the students are requesting to visit the water table.
Our current unit of study is transportation. It is great that we are able to use the water proof aprons for our study on vehicles that travel in the water. The students are using the foam blocks for balance and creating boats for the water. In March, our unit will be water. We will be totally emerged in hands on learning with our new STEM toys.
I am overwhelmed with the generosity of the people, like you who are connected to the Donors Choose community. Thank you for your contributions.”
With gratitude,
Ms. B
This classroom project was brought to life by PNC Grow Up Great® and 3 other donors.Life Is A (Wooden) Puzzle
Funded Dec 31, 2017As a teacher, I know the value of playing with puzzles. I usually sit with my students to encourage them to play with me while I watch them use methods of trial and error to solve puzzles. When our new puzzles came, it was a cause for elation. Everyone loves new things, It was thrilling for the students to open the packages.
I had more than the usual four children coming to sit with me at the puzzle table. The children were really excited about the different puzzles. There are wooden puzzles reinforcing the concepts of numbers and shapes- concepts we are doing in math daily. There are transportation puzzles, which arrived just in time for our new upcoming unit on vehicles. It is great when the toys around the room can be rotated and are related to the theme. One of the toys that arrived was a wooden logic puzzle. Some of the students began to play with it. It was challenging, but it was on their level. I am so pleased that I was able to receive all the puzzles, on all different levels of development. While, the children are doing puzzles, they usually sit with other children. It is a social activity and language development takes place. Many times the language revolves around the toys, in this case, the puzzles.
Our next steps in the classroom will be to learn about transportation. So we are transforming the dramatic play area, which usually looks like a kitchen, to become a bus, or subway station. When the room "screams the theme", it really deepens the understanding the children have about the subject area. In this area, the children use the concepts and vocabulary from the read alouds and mini lessons, and repeat them while in dramatic play.”
With gratitude,
Ms. B
This classroom project was brought to life by PNC Grow Up Great® and one other donor.Home Sweet Home
Funded Dec 29, 2017My students were overjoyed when they saw the doll furniture. I found a wooden house in a closet in the school, but we had no doll furniture. Now, when we take out the house, the people (figurines) and the new furniture, the play is complete. It really is important for the children to play house. The furniture is great for understanding and making the play house real. The children set up the house, each room with the furniture they want. They move the people around the house. The children are communicating and role playing. They are developing a script, which is amazing to see. The children enjoy playing with the animals in the barn. The barn structure helps them understand which animals are belong on a farm. These are city kids. The interactive play is very important.
The students were delighted with the toys when they arrived. We had tears of happiness & tears of , "when will it be my turn to play".
Currently, our unit of study is homes: Where do people and animals live? Our culminating project is going to be a large banner with different animal homes, under the ground - in burrows, in trees, in logs. Learning about animal homes and human homes were an important part of this unit. The materials arrived just in time. Thank you for your generous donations.”
With gratitude,
Ms. B
This classroom project was brought to life by PNC Grow Up Great® and 3 other donors.Exercise & Young Minds
Funded Dec 29, 2017It is the winter in NYC and there is still ice in the playground. We are exercise and do gross motor activities in the hallway. My students are so excited when the packages arrived for our new indoor/outdoor gross motor equipment. I am totally amazed at their excitement at the new games. They absolutely love the Giant Number Stepping Stones. The kids line up and wait (relatively) patiently to get a chance to step and walk on the stepping stones while reciting the numbers. Of course, their friends help them out, since not everyone is secure knowing the numerals. While one group is stepping on stones, another group is playing hop scotch on the hop scotch carpet.
The last group is waiting to try out the "Step A Logs", which is like a balance beam. We are excited to move the logs to different configurations. It can be a straight line, or zig zag.
The students were really excited. I am trying to have them understand that we have a secret angel, the "Donors Choose" donors. The angels make this happen by donating to classrooms. I sent home an email to the parents, letting them know about our secret angels and our new equipment. The parents are in awe and so appreciative that you went out of your way to make a difference in our students well being and education. Thank you.
Right now in our classroom, we are our unit of study is transportation. We will be studying different modes of transportation. In the science component, we will be testing out wooden blocks as ramps and rolling objects down to see which goes faster, straighter, etc. I can only image that they will want to bring cars to play on the Step a Log. Thank you again for your generous donations.”
With gratitude,
Ms. B
This classroom project was brought to life by PNC Grow Up Great® and 4 other donors.Building a Listening Library
Funded Dec 12, 2017Thank you so much for generous donation. With your help I was able to build the CD listening library in my classroom. As a veteran teacher, I accumulated many audio tapes & books for my students. But that technology was outdated. I no longer had a tape recorder. I purchased a CD player and I am slowing adding CD's and books to our collection. With your help, my audio library has more quality stories that the children will love to hear over and over again.
The children go independently during choice time to hear books on CD's. The children go 3 at a time. They sit together, (it is a social event) and they choose which book to listen to. I will introduce a title to them when I do a read aloud. That gets them really excited. So excited, that they want to hear the story and turn the pages themselves.
The favorite books so far, from this new addition are the Dr. Seuss books, since they are rhyming books. The kids love the sing song rhythm to the stories plus they LOVE the illustrations. The other favorites, probably because they are also my favorite stories, are the Eric Carle books.
The children that are just learning English also love to hear the audio stories. They love to hear the sound of the "new" language. The audio cd's and books help build new and rich vocabulary while letting children hear the fluency and inflections of the reader.
Thank you for helping us with your generous donation.
Thank you from the future book worms in Brooklyn.”
With gratitude,
Ms. B
This classroom project was brought to life by PNC Grow Up Great® and 3 other donors.Creative Minds Begin With Art
Funded Dec 6, 2017My students were so excited when they saw the new art supplies, especially the chalk and playdoh. Those are their two favorite things to do. Even though it is winter, they want to go outside and use the chalk. (We will have to wait until the spring comes). The playdoh is in use. The children use the playdoh to develop fine motor skills while rolling out the playdoh and making shapes with cookie cutter or stamps. It is a great way for sensory play. They are learning to make letters and numbers. They are using the playdoh with the new unit on transportation. They love to roll the cars and make tracks on the playdoh.
I am excited with the new art aprons. Now, the children can enjoy art with out worrying about getting their clothing dirty. We had old smocks, but they were ripped. I am excited for the big gallons of primary colors of paint. Two years ago, I attended a workshop for pre K teachers about bringing art into the classroom. Since that workshop, my students are always painting. We also only use primary colors, so that they can learn which how to blend and mix colors. So that is art and science. They discover what happens when i mix blue and red.
We will be continuing to paint and mix colors. As the year progresses we develop our painting skills from "just" paint strokes to painting pictures that are recognizable as shapes, objects and people.
Thank you for bringing art back into our classroom. Your generous donations are truly warming in these cold winter months.”
With gratitude,
Ms. B
This classroom project was brought to life by PNC Grow Up Great® and 5 other donors.