Past projects 76
Defeating Dyslexia
Funded Mar 14, 2023Thank you for helping me to support students who have low literacy levels due to dyslexia. I received 6 sets of magnetic letter boards with whiteboards. I also received 6 set of sight word games at various levels. At the end of the school year I chose 5 families to give these materials to. I also kept one to use in the classroom.
Three of the families had 3rd graders who were reading at a First Grade in Spanish and English level despite having had support from both myself and a tutor as well as attending the after school programs. One of the families had a student with severe memory issues as well as other learning dissabilities. The last family had a 3rd Grade student and a 2nd grade student who were both struggling to read.
I met with each family individually to show them what I wanted them to do during the summer. I gave them the magnetic letter boards with whiteboards and the games. I also gave them several books at beginning reading levels in Englihs and Spanish. I asked parents to sit and read one book with their students every day and then have students practice sight words that they found in the book using the magnetic letters. After that they were to practice writing sentences or just copying the words and reading them.
Finally I asked the family to play a game with them so that they could continue practicing the sight words. Some families had little time and so I suggested they had older sibblings, grandparents or friends help them out during the summer. For some of the meeting the speech pathologist joined me to support the parent training since some students also had speech issues.
School has just started and I am reaching out to their current teachers to let them know what students were given during the summer. I am also reaching out to some of the parents to continue to encourage them to use the materials. Thank you for your support.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Garcia
This classroom project was brought to life by A Northern California family and 5 other donors.Storage Benches for Library
Funded Sep 6, 2023The storage benches for our library have just arrived and we will be building them tomorrow after school. The benches will help to make our classroom environment more inviting and encourage students to spend more time reading both independently and together. The second grade classroom where these benches will be located has very few shelves and only metal or wood unattractive shelving that does the job but fails to inspire a love for reading. The benches will break up the shelving systems and create a reading nook for students so that they can have a separate reading area. The addition of these benches is essential for this class because 75% of the class lack the ability to focus on reading for more than a few minutes. When they are reading at their desks they become disruptive and unfocused. Therefore during reading time I need to spread students out so that they can focus on reading for longer periods of time. I am usually working with a small group of students during this time and if the rest of the class is disruptive I cannot focus on the group I am working with. The only way this class will improve in reading is if I have the time to address the specific needs of each student at their level and if they are motivated to try to apply what they learn for longer periods of time. I plan to have some of the higher readers work with lower readers in the special reading area so that while I am working with other students all students are engaged in reading. The benches are a part of creating the environment that allows for the best learning conditions. Thank you for your generosity.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Garcia
This classroom project was brought to life by Panda Cares and 3 other donors.Spanish Spelling Success
Funded Aug 25, 2023It has been a difficult start to school this year. We were unable to find a Spanish Bilingual teacher for Second Grade so I have been teaching two classrooms for half the day with an English sub teaching the classrooms the other half of the day. The class that is benefiting from this project has had a rough start with many behavior issues and students lacking the structure required to improve the situation. That is why this year more than ever your donations have made a great impact on the work that we are doing. Since I am teaching this class during the second half of the day when their attention spans are even shorter, I am teaching through centers with them. Centers allow students to change activities every 20 minutes and involve various methods such as games and puzzles. The materials that you bought for us have helped greatly. I start the class with a behavior lesson that lasts about 20 minutes. Then we do an hour of centers with two rotations and time for cleaning and set up. There are 4 centers. One center is working with computers. Another working with puzzles and syllable games. A third center is working with magnetic letters and sight words. The last center is working with me in spelling, phonics, letter formationa and writing. It is easier for me to work with 4-6 students at a time instead of trying to have everyone write at once because the students are not yet able to work independently and thus become distracted and this causes disturbances that affect the whole class. There are about 5 students who are at grade level and the other 15 students range from slightly below to very far below grade level. The materials tha you have purchased have helped me to bring calm and focus to the afternoon with this class that so desperately needs to be given the opportuniy to learn. Thank you so much for your generosity. Your support helps me to adapt to the needs of this class to help them reach the success that they are very capable of. Thank you.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Garcia
Teacher Resources Made by Teachers
Funded Jan 11, 2023Thanks to your help I received 2 gift cards for Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT). I had already saved several things that I wanted to get in the TPT cart. I bought many reading and math resources. Among the things I purchased with your help were several reading comprehension pages that I use for homework. I like using the resources from TPT because teachers know what we need. The reading comprehension pages came with short one page passages and three questions all on the same page. Having the format be compact allows me to give my students one two sided homework page per day that we can easily review in class if needed. The reading comprehension pages were at various levels so that I can easily give students homework close to their reading level. I also purchased some games that will help students practice grammar concepts such as Subject and Predicate.
In addition, I purchases some resources to help my beginning spanish readers in small groups. We will first read the syllables used in the story and review any difficult words. Then we will read the story the first time, stopping to check for understanding and provide support. After that students will get the sentences seperately and they will read and put them in order independently while I work with one student at a time. Then I will check the sentences and they will paste the sentences onto their writing notebook. After that they will take the one page paper and reread it with a volunteer who will review anything that they forgot. Finally students will take the pages home to read to parents and continue reviewing.
Another purchase I made with your donation were some digital activities to practice 3 digit addition and subtraction which is giving most of my students a hard time. I also bought place value activities for number in the thousands and above. Until now we have practiced addition and subraction with two or three digit numbers. However, in 4th grade my students will see addition with four or more digits and they need to understand what they are doing. I often have students estimate their answer before calculating it and that has revelead a gap in number sense with numbers higher than a thousand. Place value practice with such numbers will help them understand what they are doing better so that they can estimate to check their answers later on.
Your donation will help me in many ways. Having these resources at hand will not only suppor t my current class but allow me to prepare for my incoming class regardless of where they are in their learning. Thank you.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Garcia
Replacement Headphones
Funded Dec 31, 2022Thank you so much for helping my students to get new headphones and just in time. Several of our old headphones started malfunctioning a few weeks ago. I love having the color coded headphones in containers that are easily picked up and returned by students. I think we save at least 2 minutes of passing out headphones each day.
I can use those two minutes to prepare for a lesson or start working with a student. Two minutes does not seem like a lot but in those two minutes I can prepare enough to help me run things more smoothly.
The students love the new headphones and they don't argue about which one is theirs since they are all the same at their table. I did need to take a few minutes to teach them how to put them away carefully so that they last. The hard plastic containers will help keep these headphones working longer. I also love the thick flat cord that does not tangle much. The students do various things on the computer such as reading with their Book Nook Tutor or in Raz Kids, working on math in Dreambox or writing an assignment on Google Docs or Slides. While they don't need their headphones for all of these things, having the headphones available and ready for them to use and get on their own has been essential to helping us work efficiently.
When students have their headphones on they are less distracted and thus learn more. I have one girl, who is very bright. She knows the answers before I ask the questions. However, her mind works so fast she has trouble focusing on one thing when she hears something else that she wants to know about. When she is on her headphones, she is focused and so engaged that I sometimes have to tap her on the shoulder to tell her to clean up for recess. That's a great problem to have. Thank you.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Garcia
Science Books We Understand
Funded Oct 15, 2022Thank you for helping me provide science books for my lower readers. They love the books and are more engaged than before. Your donation of science books in Spanish was extremely helpful in motivating my students to read. Several of my students have improved 2 or 3 reading levels. Even though they are still lower than they should be in 3rd grade, they have made significant improvements. Each week the students pick 10 books to read. They pick 4 fiction and 6 nonfiction books. The students read the books independently while I work with a group. From time to time I go over and check on their reading or comprehension to make sure they have the right book and are doing the work. When they come to me in small groups to read, I also give them science books. Your donation allowed me to get sets of 6 in English that I am using with two groups of students. The guided reading sets allow me to support students with more difficult text and introduce both science concepts and characteristics of scientific texts that they will see later on. Thank you for your donation.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Garcia
Classroom Supplies
Funded Sep 21, 2022With your donation I was able to purchase some essentials for the classroom as well as a storage cart to keep everything organized. We got enough notebooks for Science and Language Arts. My students love science. We recently went to the Exploratorium and had a chance to practice what we learned in our Balancing Forces Science Unit. When we came back we wrote about what we saw. Some of the materials you purchased for us were sets of magnets so that the students can continue to explore the things we studied. When students are done with their math work I allow them to choose things to play with. They love building and exploring with the magnets. Among the materials purchased with your donation were filing folders which have been quite useful in helping me organize student work and other materials. Thank you for supporting my classroom and providing us with everything we need to keep on learning.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Garcia
This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose Community and 4 other donors.Hats and Scarves for Winter
Funded Nov 29, 2022Today I handed out holiday bags with the hats, scarves, gloves and the socks. All the students were very excited to get their gifts. I had them open them and put on the hat, scarves and gloves. They loved them! Some of them said that they won't take them off.
Some said they were glad to get them because they were cold. It always amazes me how some children are so grateful for little things. The hat and scarves will keep their body warm. However, their smiles and joy are what keeps me warm and why I continue to teach. Thank you so much for providing my students with such useful gifts. Happy Holidays.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Garcia
This classroom project was brought to life by an Anonymous Classroom Supporter and 12 other donors.Come Code Collaboratively
Funded Jul 24, 2022Our coding robots now have bateries and students are able to use them. I've looked at the instructions and had some trouble figuring out how to guided students to use them. I found a couple of videos online with basic instructions to help students get started. I then left each group to figure things out on their own. Since we have 4 robots I decided to have groups of 4 students who finish their math work early get a chance to use them. So far about 12 students have experimented with the robots. Having students, who finished, work with the robots has allowed me to support struggling students better since I don't have to spend time instructing the students who are higher in math. I was pleasantly surprised at the things I saw while glancing over to those who experimented with the robots. The students figured it out on their own, helped each other and did things that I did not realize we could do with the robots. I love that they come with cards that help them plan out their code before they try it and then remember what they did. Since we do coding work once a week in our computers using code.org or scratch, students understand the basics of what to do. They were having so much fun I wanted to go and play myself. I think I will introduce my mentee, who is a student from another class, to the robots during our lunch meeting. That way I can play too. At some point we will invite some of our first grade buddies to learn with us. Thank you so much for helping to give my students valuable skills that will transfer into real life. Thank you, also, for helping me diferentiate so that all my students are successful. Your generosity makes a huge difference in our learning. Thank you.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Garcia
This classroom project was brought to life by Chevron and 4 other donors.Happy to Tie Dye
Funded Sep 29, 2022We had lots of fun painting our caps and tie dying our shirts. We used fabric markers to decorate our caps and worked together so that they would match our partners. The next day after our dance class we went to our garden yard to tie dye our shirts. Our dance teacher helped us. During the weekend our teacher took the shirts home and washed and dried them to set the colors. The next week we practiced with our caps and shirts several times. We also added the words "Happy" and "Feliz" to our shirts since that was the song that we were performing to. Our performance was great. We stayed together, moved with the music and looked awesome in our shirts and caps. Thank you so much for allowing us to dress up for our first assembly performance in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month. Everyone said we looked great. We even had some some comments about our performance being the best one in the assembly. We know that everyone had a great performance, but we are very proud of the job we did. Thank you.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Garcia