Mrs. Fife's Classroom Edit display name

Past projects 59

• Closing the Reading Gap, One "Inch" at a Time

  Funded Mar 30, 2023

  I am at a total loss for words. This project was created with high hopes but never in a million years did we think it would get funded. I have been telling all of our students about this and they are almost as excited as us! Thank you so so so much for making a lot of little friends (and big friends too) very happy!”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Fife

  This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose Community and one other donor.

• Leaving Our “Prints” on the World!

  Funded Nov 30, 2022

  Thank you so much! You two are so amazing and have no idea how many lives you have touched! Literally every one of my kiddos’m favorites things to do in my class is only there because of you guys! I appreciate all of the supportive you have given my students, my colleagues and myself! We are having a fantastic year and I know it will only get better! Thank you again!”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Fife

  This classroom project was brought to life by an Anonymous Classroom Supporter and 3 other donors.

• Imagination Comes to Life

  Funded Oct 14, 2022

  Oh my goodness gracious! Thank you so much for funding another one of my crazy endeavors. My students and I are going to have so much fun and learn so much using these! I had a vision for these post- Covid 3rd graders and I knew we would need quite a bit of buy-in as school was not so much a priority their entire school career. So many of the things we consider cool and exciting are not hitting like they used to. I thought that by giving them a new experience with brand new skills. I know our kiddos are up for the challenge and cannot thank you both enough for this opportunity!”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Fife

  This classroom project was brought to life by The Chuck Lorre Family Foundation and 2 other donors.

• Flashy and Fun!

  Funded Nov 7, 2021

  I apologize for writing this so late. I had a very difficult time getting photos of students using these materials as they were so excited to get them, many immediately took them home.

  The project was created for our first year math teacher who was at her wits end trying to create flash cards for students who continued to lose them. She was so very thankful to be able to give each student their own set of flashcards to practice whenever they needed.

  I don't think our students reached mastery, but they improved by leaps and bounds! I teach Science and Social Studies and when students would rotate to my class they would ask if they could practice with their flashcards if they have free time later.

  I thought this was really awesome as normally flashcards are not very fun for kids. But, by giving them each their own, students really got excited about them. Thank you again for your support of my students. You are truly appreciated!”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Fife

  This classroom project was brought to life by General Motors and 2 other donors.

• Happy, Healthy and Ready to Learn!

  Funded Oct 23, 2021

  I am so sorry for my late response on this, but your donation has truly helped our students in countless ways! The L-shaped desk has been used for helping us keep our distance so as to not infect others. Now that Covid has been dying down a bit, we use it to have small groups in which I can help students understand difficult concepts nearly one-on-one.

  We have used all of the sanitizer, sneeze guards, first aid kits and masks to help keep illnesses at bay. Students having their own materials has been vital to that as well. When they have their own pencils and earbuds etc. there was much less cross-contamination which helped keep everyone healthy.The labels and ink were wonderful in helping us label things for students which again truly helped keep my kiddos safe.

  Thank you again for all of your support in keeping kids in the classroom, learning and loving school!”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Fife

  This classroom project was brought to life by #TeachHealthy with Nature Made and one other donor.

• A Fresh Look at a Good Book!

  Funded Oct 21, 2021

  Thank you so incredibly much for your enormous donation of books to my classroom! I have to be honest and tell you just about all of those books went right next door to the reading teacher's classroom as she has much more time for them to read. Your fantastic donation was not wasted as she is an extremely wonderful and organized teacher. She currently has an app on her phone in which she is able to have students check in and out books during class by scanning the code and snapping a picture. She says that there are so many students every single day every single class checking out books that they're excited to read and finally approaching grade level reading! We are so happy to see student hitting those reading milestones that they weren't able to hit the past few years. Because our school library has fines when they return books late or damaged, many parents opt out of allowing their student to check out books. Our school library is the only library students have access to as we do not have a community library. There are a few libraries in the surrounding area of Yakima. But many families don't have transportation out of town to get there. So, Mrs. Morris running her own library in class in which students can check out books is an absolute dream. Unfortunately, I am not an organized enough teacher to be able to successfully run something like that. She also knows their reading levels, so it works beautifully. The other issue with our school library is that students from Pre-K to 8th grade all check out from the same place. This means that students who are reading a books series and waiting for book 3 out of 8, may have to wait a few weeks. It has working well having her run the library. She said the only problem is that students are devouring Books so quickly the first 10 or 15 minutes of class are just students checking-in and out books and getting a new book the next day. Which we agree is a good problem. She and I are in agreement that it is a small price to pay using a little time in class to build the lifelong love of reading that our students were missing previously. When students started the school year their attitude about books was "why read when I can watch a video about it?" Or having the feeling that there was nothing in a book that they can relate to. By helping us provide these books for students we have seen students reading and writing ability jump from kindergarten level to almost reading and writing at grade level! This project has helped make reading cool and students cannot get enough. Thank you for trusting our book choices for students and funding yet another life changing project! From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you!”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Fife

  This classroom project was brought to life by Dollar General Literacy Foundation and 2 other donors.

• Learning Together With Germs at Bay! Part 5

  Funded Sep 29, 2021

  Thank you so much for yet again funding what can only be described as another one of Mrs. Fife's crazy ideas. I know in my class I teach social studies and science and I sprinkle in social and emotional learning at any opportunity I can. So, asking for books for students to be able to draw things seemed like quite the stretch. That is why I am so grateful to have understanding donors like you believe in teaching the whole child. There is not one minute of one day that these resources are not being used by my students. They absolutely love them and treasure them. This project is helping my students learn about respecting shared materials and spaces as they thoroughly enjoy being able to learn to draw if and when they have a little extra free time. This has helped them gain respect for the materials as they know they wouldn't want anything to happen to those books. I have been able to use these materials to show students that all materials are just as much mine as they are the students. I've even been able to loosen my clutch on materials a little bit by allowing students to take the drawing books out with them to recess. I know! So scary! There has been maybe one incident of a page tearing and the student was mortified and tattled on themselves. I told them accidents happened we just want to try our best to take care of it so everyone can use it. I know they were relieved at my response, but extremely careful from then on out. I am so impressed with how well our students have taken care of the materials. This has never really been done before in my class. I'm not sure if it's that the students are more responsible or if they just really love the materials, or maybe distance learning has shown them that hands on materials are extremely valuable, but whatever it is I am thankful. Because of your generosity I was able to show my kids how special they are to us and give them the opportunity to show how responsible they could be. I'm so incredibly thankful that they rose to the occasion rather than it being another learning moment. Students absolutely enjoy the cushions for our reading area as well, and have treated them so nicely. The bonus of those cushions being that I'm able to wipe them down for germs really easily. Thank you so very much for investing in my students once again and helping to bring a little comfort and normalcy into their lives. Thank you for helping me to provide something for Kids to look forward to. Your support of my classroom means the world to us.”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Fife

• Learning Together With Germs at Bay! Part 4

  Funded Sep 29, 2021

  I cannot even begin to express my gratitude for you guys! Not only do you fund projects for important things like books and supplies and health materials. But you fund my projects that are as silly as keychains and fidgets or cute stickers and erasers. I'm so thankful that you guys see the value in having little motivators for students. Many of those materials seem worthless to others, so we teachers buy them ourselves. So, the need for them never goes away but the support often does. I'm just so thankful to have people like you in my life that see the value in every little thing and how it will help our students to be successful. We have fantastic administration here at our school but sometimes they even call prize box item "those cheap toys from China". But when you provide us with these little tokens for students, kids light up. You know how difficult the beginning of every school year already is. This year was compounded with the fact that none of these students had really ever been in school. So, these kids constantly asked "do we have to do that? "or "why do we need to do this?" Because from the past they had learned that if they choose not to do their assignments it will be forgiven because of the pandemic. So, they correctly wondered what is the purpose of doing this? Because they had not yet built up there their intrinsic reward system or wanting to do better just to be better. So, we had to build up their external reward system. This means that when they do something well there's a physical reward for them until they are capable of building the intrinsic reward system. I am so happy to say that this project has helped my team immensely! I split all of our rewards with each of us 3rd grade teachers and the new teacher was incredibly thankful as she had been purchasing rewards herself and said it was becoming overwhelming to manage. Our more veteran teacher said she didn't really use rewards but will try to give them out when she can. Fast forward to today, kids are trying! We have even been able to back off of giving a reward for absolutely everything they do. As they now understand that a pat on the back is just as good as a prize. Of course, we still give out rewards to those Who do an above and beyond job such as homework or doing a class job. The kids still love the prizes. Some students actually go out of their way still to do kind things in hopes of getting a prize. But even they are just as satisfied when I thank them in front of other students for a job well done. As I mentioned before we are so grateful for all of your support in so many different factors of our students lives. You have taken so many burdens off of our shoulders, and continue to make teaching fun. Thank you so much for all that you do!”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Fife

• Learning Together With Germs at Bay! Part 2

  Funded Sep 29, 2021

  Thank you so much for funding this project. This one was another and Mrs. Fife's crazy plans. When students first came back to us this year, we we're struggling so hard. These kids had to adapt to online learning in the middle of first grade. They attended most of the second grade online and then boom they were big third graders. So, there are some serious skills lacking not because they didn't want to know them but because of many different obstacles that had come up. Obstacles such as sickness, terrible Internet connection, parents or family members being too loud during online school etc. Some students genuinely were just checked out. So, this beginning of the school year was tough. These kids had never really done school, but they were already over it. It felt like we were waiting for the shoe to drop. We were all just wondering when they would have to go back to online learning. Some students pretended not to know enough in hopes that we would just skip it like you have to do online if kids aren't getting it. So, this is where my brainchild was formed. Even though kids had done their learning online they didn't understand technology so it couldn't rely on those skills either. They also didn't know how to write so I couldn't just have them do paper and pencil tasks. A real example life example is that in my higher group of students I had a kid ask me how to spell their last name. I told them (because it was the beginning of the year and I hadn't learned all of their last names yet) "I think you would know that better than me" and he got really upset and said, "I've never spelled it before!" That's when I knew these kids needed help. So, this Project was to create a recording studio for my kids where they can keep a distance with the plastic barrier and not be breathing on each other. The headphones from the last project were a way for them to be able to speak directly into the microphone and have it recorded on their device. I Also had requested foam so that I could soundproof that area just a little big because I have a loud voice that carries and didn't want to mess up their work. After I got this set up, I had to do my first science and social studies assessment in which students had to write a Claim. That is where we ask them to answer a scientific question, they have to provide evidence from their reading or something we have learned in class, and they must explain their reasoning. I call them CERs usually, but it requires students to be able to write at least a few sentences. I had so many students not put anything down and there was no way to motivate them. I had a few students answer the completely wrong question and I had many students who I know could answer the question but had no stamina to write. These kids would answer a three-part question with one sentence! So, then I had students answer the exact same question using their notes that they had written down but then video recording themselves on an app called Flipgrid. It is like a little movie maker and when you go on flip grid, you can add cool filters and it's a little more like what You Tube stars used to create content. Using that, all of a sudden, the answers I got back were thoughtful and deep, they make sense they were correct, and kids make sure to answer every part of the question! Something funny I noticed was that some students already have YouTube creator accounts. Those kids would start their videos with their sign in phrase. For example, pretend this student's name was Juan D (it wasn't but for the sake of privacy we'll call him that) as I was watching videos to grade them, he started his video "what's up everybody it's your boy Juan D. coming at you live here in Union Gap School"..... and then proceeded to correctly answer my question. That was one of the coolest things I've seen. That student, and many others, struggled so hard to sound things out that by the third word, they forgot what they were even trying to answer in the first place. So, this is a way for them to keep their amazing answers, make it a little fun and take time to show what they know rather than struggle and stress. Another positive that came from this is that my lowest group of students, many of them having IEP's and 504 plans, were so much more successful by answering their assessments this way. We were actually able to convince the principal to allow me to give my assessments to those students both ways (video and written) to see content versus writing ability. This was a huge breakthrough for those kids and helped me to accommodate them even more. This also helped them see their own successes. I am not done with this project as I want to continue to help all struggling students. My plan moving forward is when we have a writing project that requires kids to handwrite paragraphs, I'm going to allow them to use a recording studio to voice type their answers on Microsoft Word so that it's not so long and painful. Once they get the rough draft typed out, we're going to print them, and all have students spend some time with the reading teacher to help make corrections where needed. Then all they have left to do typing-wise is to fix those corrections. That will certainly help lighten their load of work, but still get the "meat" of the learning. This is what third grade is all about. So again, I can't thank you enough because you helped us to show students who were very apathetic about school, that there are many ways we can help them be successful. Also, that we can do it in fun and less difficult ways. This certainly helped many students, myself and even our admin to recognize the importance of accommodation. Thank you again!”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Fife

• Learning Together With Germs at Bay! Part 1

  Funded Sep 30, 2021

  Thank you so much for funding this project! This project was a collaboration of all the 3rd grade teachers, and I think everybody got something they really wanted and needed. When I saw we had received (your generous funds) I told my team about it and asked them if there were any things that they needed or wanted for their kiddos. The reading teacher across the hall is a veteran teacher and initially told me that she had everything she needed. Our math teacher is very green and told me she had been spending so much money on her classroom just to get her room put together the way she wanted it. I told her not to do that and to let me help her, through you. She finally agreed and asked for trays so that students who are playing math games can roll the dice and keep their games contained when they are playing and learning. Also, if I could get her erasers because they're always coming up missing. She also does some of their testing online and asked if there was any way to get some extra earbuds for students so they can hear the questions read to them. After our veteran teachers saw that I was serious about sharing she requested book boxes for the students. She had always used the cardboard ones and the bottoms are always falling out and kids are constantly losing their work. She also requested computer mice to go with their computers for their required online testing as many 3rd graders struggle to use the trackpad. So, I told both of them no problem! I also requested a little something for my class for our recording area with the gaming headphones. Kids loved the headphones and some of them had the exact same ones at their house and already knew how to work him and many just watch YouTube creators that have similar headphones. So now we can get work done and they feel like they're creating their own content. I've gotten lots of feedback from the teachers thanking me for sharing your gift and about you for just being downright amazing, but I was most excited when students come from those teachers' classrooms, and they say things like "Mrs. Morris got us these really cool book boxes and mine is my favorite color!" or "Mrs. George always has erasers for us and extra earbuds!" I Feel like things like that show that the kids feel loved and appreciated and that they never really need to go without. Thank you so much for enabling us to give that feeling to our students and enabling me to build the relationship with my team. When kids have what they need everywhere they go, school isno longer struggle but an adventure. Thank you again for giving that to us!”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Fife