Past projects 25
Poetry for Healing Teens in a Post-Pandemic World
Funded Apr 13, 2021The stories that were read from these anthologies helped students connect with the human experience. They allowed my students to feel part of a larger community and understand that everyone faces challenges and hardships in life, which was especially poignant as we all endured this year of pandemic learning and the constant anxiety and stressors it has caused. We learned from the characters and built a better understanding of themes in literature and how to interpret these lessons and find evidence from the text to support our assertions. We also learned that perspective is essential and that often people may see the same thing in different ways and that is one of the keys to these texts, the voices are diverse and they all matter.
Students read the texts in multiple ways, sometimes in small groups, at times independently, but everyone most enjoyed having the teacher read as a model of fluency while allowing students the ability to listen and visualize the story. We stopped often to inquire, make connections, and talk about the texts to deepen our understanding.
As the books included several authors work, some students did go on to seek out other materials by those writers and it has yielded an increased sense of "readership" amongst my classes having the experience of reading through so many pieces of literature.
We are very grateful that these books were supplied thanks to your generous contributions to this project and thank you deeply for giving.”
With gratitude,
Mr. McConnell
This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose Community and 10 other donors.Live the Story: Murals of Community Pride
Funded Sep 18, 2020This project has inspired a conversation of immense importance. It has initiated curricular planning with a foundation in community identity and the interrelated aspects of our social fabric. This project celebrates our diversity and gives reverence to those individuals that have sacrificed for the greater good and shared wisdom with the younger generations.
Thank you to the donors who supported this creative and impactful work and we look forward to the reverberated positive influence of your giving in our classrooms and greater city for years to come.”
With gratitude,
Mr. McConnell
Making Pottery for Teens: No more "Ghosting" your Creative Spirit!
Funded Nov 23, 2020At this point this project is still in the planning stages and preparing for implementation. You could say we are at the "wedging" step in the ceramics making process. I have been able to share a few pieces thrown on the wheels as a way to generate interest for the upcoming school year and have planned several art-integration lessons that will be carried out next academic years when there is a rerun to physical instruction in my district.
There is definitely interest amongst the student body and staff to maximize these resources for creative projects. Thank you so much to the donors who understand the potential of this project and provided the funding to bring it to my students.”
With gratitude,
Mr. McConnell
This classroom project was brought to life by Allstate Foundation and one other donor.Voices Need to be Heard! Short Stories for Young Readers
Funded Mar 5, 2020The funding of this project will greatly improve our learning community to quality young adult literature. Through these collections, students will hear from voices like their own and start to understand that they are not alone in their experiences. Our hope is that by reading short stories from diverse authors, students will start to discover their own voices.
As our school closure interrupted the use of these materials with students this school year, they have been vital tools for planning lessons and thematic units for when we return to the classroom. The collection of short stories has provided teachers with touchstones to build upon with important central ideas like community and belonging, loss and empathy, and individual identity. These themes are crucial for our young readers to consider and will provide them perspective as they navigate the tumultuous world that is so dramatically changing around them.
Thank you to all donors who supported this project with the understanding that literature reflects our humanity. Please rest assured that your contributions to this project are not being wasted or neglected because of the pandemic, but rather utilized in preparation for a return to school and collective restoration of normalcy guided by the telling of one's own story and understanding others' stories through literature.”
With gratitude,
Mr. McConnell
This classroom project was brought to life by A group of anonymous donors and 16 other donors.The Power of Periodicals: Magazines to Read!
Funded Nov 2, 2017Your donations have been vital to sparking students' interests in reading and in building their skills of accessing new information from credible print sources. In my class, students read on a daily basis and at least once a week, they read the magazines your donations provided. This project has brought new and timely materials which are authentic and relevant for my teen readers. It is a pleasure to hear students excitement as I display each new issue and preview the articles available to read that week. It's because of your generosity that I have kids saying "I'm going to read that one!" or "That sounds like something for me!"
Oftentimes, the girls gravitate toward magazines that were written for them like Seventeen and Teen Vogue, which have recently included excellent features about Female Empowerment and ways to respond to Sexual Harassment. Many boys are attracted to the articles in magazines like Car and Driver and Sports Illustrated. They are more engaged as they read about topics that are of high-interest for them. None of my students have magazines in their homes or have even heard of the concept of subscribing to a periodical. Sadly, even our school library lacks such materials for our students to read.
My students take notes on their reading and build up their capacity over time. Now I know that my kids are self-motivated to look to periodicals to find good reading materials, something that they will benefit from in the future.
One of the best uses of the magazines in class are when we can use an article as a springboard for a critical conversation. The Scholastic Scope magazine and Choices magazine have supplied us with lots of material to talk about including topics like substance abuse, healthy relationships, and responsible use of cells/technology devices.
We all want to thank you for supporting this authentic project to get youngsters reading and thinking about important topics all through the Power of Periodicals!”
With gratitude,
Mr. McConnell
This classroom project was brought to life by Sergey Brin Family Foundation and 9 other donors.Drones to Inspire Engineers
Funded Apr 30, 2017Technology helps young people learn! They are fearless when they try to find information using their devices. The students of today are able to access information quicker and with more options than any other age. Our technology from this grant, the drone, is a way to get us thinking about engineering and analyzing how complex machine work and how they were designed.
The drone technology which we have been graciously granted is currently in use as a way to introduce flight dynamics and physics concepts in our science classes. The drone is also an introduction to more advanced video production tools and is being used for recording video from new perspectives. The students had chances to learn about how the technology works and launch and land the drone in our yard.
We plan to continue to look for ways to leverage this exciting technology with our kids and get them thrilled about STEM after experiences with the drone.”
With gratitude,
Mr. McConnell
Young Botanists: Learning and Growing Our Food
Funded May 1, 2017Wow! The enthusiasm about our learning garden is palpable...just like the veggies will be soon! All of my students enjoyed unpacking our supplies and especially the seeds. The kids used so many advanced adjectives to describe the look of the different seeds and I heard repeated exclamations: "I never knew they looked like that!"
We have already begun our worm viewing and are enjoying the process of making compost from our food scraps thanks to our wiggling little classroom friends. The books which help explain these complex topics to kids have been invaluable in our explorations.
Our next steps will be to maintain our plants and watch their progress. We plan on experimenting with different fertilizers and practice our scientific observations and data recording skills. Based on the size of the smiles and intensity of the eyes while working in our garden I can tell that this project will definitely influence many future scientists and botanists. Thank you to all the donors who made this possible!”
With gratitude,
Mr. McConnell
Teacher Tech Upgrade
Funded Jun 15, 2017Attending the Beauty and Joy of Computing training opened my eyes to so much I hadn't thought about in relation to the computer programming's social aspects. The class was able to provide a wide lens on the need to nurture the coding and programming skills of our youth from undeserved populations and allow them the experiences needed for a growing segment of the job force and open up the possibilities for them to enter a world which aligns with their innovative ideas. I was lucky to have a chance to experiment with the SNAP! coding language and had several hands on modules that introduced ways for students to write block coding.
One highlight was the focus on the AP exam and the challenging aspects of that test, especially the mock performance of the explore task which has a strong emphasis on computing in society and innovations and their implications on humanity. The actual participation in the exam structures will surely help in preparing students for such high rigor and high stakes assessments.
One thing that I learned in the course that will definitely become part of my courses is the strategy of Pair Programming, in which students are required to switch roles in the coding labs and must develop their communication skills and collaboration skills alongside their technical programming ability. This is a great way to engage kids in building professional academic relationships along with programs.
Many thanks to the donors that provided funding for me to have this valuable learning experience and for enhancing my knowledge and ability as a technology teacher!”
With gratitude,
Mr. McConnell
This classroom project was brought to life by Infosys Foundation USA and 2 other donors.GROW S.A.L.A.D (School Agricultural Learning And Doing)
Funded Dec 29, 2015To all the wonderfully generous and kind people that helped make this project a reality, we want to send you the biggest, most sincere and appreciative THANK YOU!
The supplies that you bought us allow us to completely transform a place on our campus that was unused and wasted before we started this project. Your donations have meant that our school now has another place for learning to happen. Lots of students and teachers are excited to use this garden and make it part of their students' experience. It also shows us city kids how important nature is to our lives.
We are currently putting seeds and seedlings into the garden and watching them grow in the Spring. We have lots of things to take care of and we are learning to be responsible to keep them alive, which is kind of fun and makes us feel like we are mature and really important members of the school community. Our garden will be set up with an automatic irrigation system, but we are still trying to figure out the best way to make that work while we are on summer break. We want to make sure t works properly so we can harvest in the fall.
We have learned lots about life and plants through this project. We learned about food we eat and where it comes from and how it can be really difficult to grow plants without the proper amount of care and attention. We learned how plants can make a space look more beautiful and we know what it feels like to grow something ourselves and we will soon know how great it is to enjoy the "fruits of your labor" which means the good food we worked hard to grow.”
With gratitude,
Mr. McConnell
This classroom project was brought to life by Staples & Think It Up Supporters and 28 other donors.Kendama Awesomeness!
Funded Dec 24, 2015We have been blessed by such amazingly generous donations! We are so grateful for your giving!I You gave us an opportunity to play Kendama and build our confidence with practice and skills. I thought that it will be hard to learn how to play Kendama the first time I came to train. With help of my friends we practice hard and concentrate to be better at Kendama. Also, with the best sensei you could ever have Mr. McConnell taught me the way how the tricks look like and how to do them. Finally, I want to say that I am going to be practicing for I could be in Kendama U.S.A.
Everyday at lunch we gather in Mr. McConnell's class and challenge ourselves and each other to get better at this awesome game. We never give up trying the tricks until we are masters and can prove our skills when Mr. McConnell will test us to see if we can do the trick in two tries. We are all trying to achieve a total of 50 points for passing all the skill tests so that we can earn our own Kendama. We are all supporting each other to make our team stronger and with more skills!
We all learned that anything is possible with effort and dedication. What seemed like really impossible tricks when we started are now the ones that seem easy. We know that if you try in life you can achieve and make your dreams come true. Lots of us now want to continue playing Kendama and get better and better. We are motivated to master more tricks and improve our skills. These lessons can be applied to our whole lives. We will never think something is too hard and we know that if we try our best, we will do it!”
With gratitude,
Mr. McConnell
This classroom project was brought to life by Gates Foundation & Think It Up Supporters and 8 other donors.