Past projects 11
Help Us Be Paper Free!
Funded May 6, 2016Thank you so much for your generous donation to our classroom! These materials will be so helpful to the students and will provide additional pathways for them to access the Internet for math fact practice, research, online assessments, and so much more. The dry erase pockets will help us save paper without inhibiting our ability to practice, problem solve, and demonstrate our thinking.
I can't wait to show the new materials to my students and watch their reaction! I love to be the one to tell them about amazingly generous people like you. Thank you for having their best interests in mind.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Petrony
Please Help Us "Easel" Into Middle School Math!
Funded Jul 13, 2015Thank you so much for the opportunity to provide my students with these materials! When we got the easel put together and my students saw it for the first time, they were so thrilled. In this day of white boards, the idea of using the chalkboard side of the easel was very exciting for them. They wouldn't wait to get their hands on it!
The dry erase markers and erasers have been a lifesaver for our class. We use them 3-4 times per week and it has been so nice to have enough in supply that we don't need to deal with sharing markers and using up valuable learning time with other marker problems. The easel has helped our classroom tremendously because it has allowed me to get to their level, bring the learning close to our small group and keep their attention much easier. The students also love to be able to use the easel during our groups and during independent learning time.
Thank you again for your generosity.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Petrony
This classroom project was brought to life by Orkin and 4 other donors."Lego" of Those Boring Old Math Lessons!
Funded Jul 7, 2015Words cannot describe the expression on the faces of my fifth graders when I pulled out the boxes of nearly 8,000 Legos that we received thanks to your generosity! At first they thought the boxes surely couldn't be full....until I began to pour them out onto our classroom carpet one by one. They were literally squealing with excitement. "Oh there's people!" and "Look! Windows and doors!" along with "Look at all of the wheels!" were some things that I heard though the ohhhhs and ahhhhs of the moment. They simply could not believe that people who have never even met them would give their teacher money so that they could have Legos in a middle school classroom.
During this elective cycle, we used the Legos and books to create our Lego visions and use our creation to write creative writing stories. We spent the two month cycle alternating between building and writing as they took their writing piece from the brainstorming phase through to a final draft where the writing was displayed alongside their creation for everyone to admire and compliment.
In our regular math class, we have used the Legos to reinforce ideas of equivalent fractions as well as the concept of area and perimeter. We plan to continue to find ways to incorporate them into our small group math lessons as the school year goes on and with a new elective cycle approaching after the holidays, we will start all over with a new group of scholars who will get to experience the excitement of seeing all of those Legos dumped out onto the carpet once again! Thank you so much for your generosity. You will never know how much it means to my scholars and myself. THANK YOU!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Petrony
This classroom project was brought to life by Orkin and 6 other donors.Mathematics in the 21st Century
Funded Mar 27, 2015"This is awesome!" "What else can I do with a QR code?" "Can I use the tablet to do IXL today?" "Can use the tablet to look up a video to help me solve this problem?"
These are some of the things that I have heard this school year from my scholars regarding the addition of the Samsung Galaxy tablet to our classroom. They absolutely love learning with this technology. While still in their seat, they can quickly find videos online to demonstrate how to solve a specific type of problem. They can work on our district assigned math programs at their seats. We check our answers after we solve problems using QR codes and now they are curious and getting creative with what other ways we can use QR codes in school and in their everyday life.
We have created curious learners, self-sufficient learners, and active learners by the simple addition of this technology. Thank you for making my job just a little bit easier by allowing me to provide my scholars with technology that excites them.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Petrony
Mathematicians Need Cameras to Create, Engage, & Learn!
Funded Aug 24, 2014When I unpacked our new cameras from the boxes, the students in my movie making elective class were so excited! They were shocked at their compact size and they couldn't believe all of the ways that the camera could be attached (to a skateboard, handlebars, worn on their head, etc) and suddenly their ideas began flowing. "Could we strap it to a baseball and throw it?" or "Could I take it home and put it on my dog?" Some ideas were more likely to happen than others but what made me happy was that they had ideas! All it took was unpacking these cameras and explaining their purpose for the students to suddenly become more creative than they had been for the entire two weeks prior to their arrival.
We have already used these cameras to teach the students how to record and edit their own written movies for math and they will again be used in the next elective cycle to record science experiments. I hope to see some real creativity come out in the science videos! We are so appreciative for the opportunities that these cameras have provided to us for teaching and learning a 21st century skill that can open doors, opportunities, and ideas for years to come!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Petrony
This classroom project was brought to life by Gates Foundation Back To School and 4 other donors.Hands-on Math Materials to Show What We Know!
Funded Aug 25, 2014Words aren't enough to explain the impact these materials have made on my students mathematical learning. We have recently had opportunities to use the fraction bars throughout this last quarter and they have made learning the concepts of finding equivalent fractions, adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators, and estimating sums and differences of fractions so much easier to understand and visualize. We had no materials like these to use in my classroom so their addition to our hands on learning is immeasurable.
The two color counters and the color tiles have also been helpful with learning fractions. We set up stations for the students to work on learning fractions of a set and creating "candy bags" (using the color tiles to mimic a small bag of Skittles) and having rich discussions regarding the fraction of each color in the bag and how it varies from bag to bag and making predictions based upon data collected.
The students love to use the materials and their understanding is so much more solid with their use. When working independently, students specifically request to have certain materials at their desk instead of the calculator! As a math teacher, that is very exciting to me! They see the benefit of the materials and they are using them to achieve higher levels of thinking even when a calculator is available to them. We are so grateful for the generosity of others with this project. It has greatly enhanced our classroom experience.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Petrony
This classroom project was brought to life by Gates Foundation Back To School and 7 other donors.All Ears! Mathematicians Need Headphones!
Funded Sep 24, 2014When our headphones arrived, the students couldn't have been more thrilled! I overheard them saying things like, "Finally!" and "Yesssss!" Every single student in the classroom chose to use them rather than just turn on the volume on their computer. I have students even ask to use them on one of our programs that has no sound; they just want to block out extra noise so they can concentrate.
We use these headphones a minimum of three times per week during "blended learning" days. They have provided my students with an opportunity to really focus in on the computer and fully understand what task they are being asked to complete and work without interruptions. As I said above, I have many students even ask to use them on a program that has no sound at all but they simply want to block out the extra classroom noise so that they can concentrate better and do well on their work. To me, this is a very big deal. Middle school students are so easily distracted and sometimes I think they want to be distracted, so hearing them ask for a tool to help keep their focus on math is a wonderful thing!
We couldn't be more appreciative of the generosity of the donors that made this happen for our classroom! You all rock!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Petrony
This classroom project was brought to life by NEA Foundation and 14 other donors.JUMP into Math!
Funded Nov 26, 2013My class was excited to receive the new Jump Math materials in our classroom. They were immediately curious about the workbooks and looked through the whole thing right away.
In my classroom, we use the Jump Math program in our small groups as an addition to our regular curriculum. One area where many of my students were really struggling was with subtraction with regrouping and I have really found the Jump Math program to be beneficial to my students and it has enhanced my teaching by providing new perspectives on the concept.
I have seen their computation test scores increase steadily since we began using the program after winter break. I plan to continue to use this program, particularly for those students who are struggling with the grade level concepts. The program breaks down each of the concepts so well that my struggling students are really able to grasp the ideas in the small group setting.
Thank you so much for your generosity!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Petrony
This classroom project was brought to life by Innovate Foundation and 5 other donors.Getting Visual With Arithmetic!
Funded Nov 6, 2013My students were so thrilled with the generosity of others that we could get these materials donated to our classroom! Most of them have never seen an abacus before and were so interested in seeing how they work. We have been using them in our small group instruction which is helping my students understand and visually see combinations of numbers that add up to 100. Likewise, we are working on subtraction from 100. With the abacus, it is a hands-on, visual tool where the pieces cannot be lost, dropped, or misplaced which makes for efficient distribution and clean up. This also helps the students better see the quantities because the pieces remain in their ten groups of ten. They can more easily manipulate the beads without getting confused because they don't come off.
We are using our fraction equivalency cubes in whole class lessons where students work in pairs to build fractions and their equivalents. Fractions can be quite confusing for so many students, having these tools in our classroom is invaluable to their processing and understanding of fractions. We began our unit reviewing 3rd grade fractions material and it was so great to see my kids using the cubes and hearing things like, "Ohhhh! I get it now!" There is no better sound to a teacher!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Petrony
Technology + Young Minds = Math Success!
Funded Aug 17, 2013When our Samsung Galaxy tablet arrived to our classroom, my students were beyond excited. They watched anxiously as I opened up the packages and put the tablet into the protective case. You could hear the whispers all around the room and I could see silent clapping out of the corner of my eye. When I turned it on for the first time, they cheered and asked over and over, "When will we get to use it?!"
So far, we have loaded some math game apps as well as a QR code scanner. I have created some math stations that include a QR code that holds the correct answer to the problem. When they complete the work on the card, they check their answer with the tablet by scanning the QR code. This has opened a whole new world of technology to them that they had never seen or used before. Many students have seen QR codes but nobody could tell me what they are or how to use them. They absolutely love to use that basic piece of technology. The math games have helped to increase their math fact fluency by challenging them to fact races and encouraging efficient strategies to solve the problems.
In all, the inclusion of the Galaxy tablet has increased student engagement, allowed me to bring 21st century technology to students who do not typically have access to such technology, and brought excitement to our math station time. It is so great to see my students so excited about”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Petrony