Past projects 14
A Bit of Biography and the Rest is History!
Funded Apr 24, 2020My students are enjoying the books on primary sources as a supplement of the history curriculum. They love perusing the pages filled with photographs of old historical documents, such as the US Constitution, the Mayflower Compact, or the writing of Lewis and Clark.
My class were especially keen to fill out their personal totem poles, which saw them make connections between animal spirits and their own character traits, paralleling the Native Americans, whom we have been studying.
Our next endeavor into US history will be biographies of famous women. We will be able to use the large-scale biography projects purchased thanks to your donation!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Bushnell
Math Centers for One and All!
Funded May 28, 2020My students have been greatly enjoying the math centers that you made possible. We regularly work on them as a round robin rotation: students find a cozy place to sit in the room with a partner and open up a game envelope. They proceed to add and subtract double digit numbers, compare numbers, and find sums or differences all through fun games. After about fifteen minutes we do a rotation of the game envelopes and students can enjoy the next challenge.
My class was very excited to work in pairs on the math games. Their excitement grows with each rotation. Because we practice the games in a rotation, no one game ever gets tiresome or old.
My students will be able to enjoy these math centers all year long, because there is variety in the kind of math being practiced in the games, so that as we learn a new math skill, there is always a new game to try.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Bushnell
This classroom project was brought to life by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and 4 other donors.Murals Make Stories Come to Life!
Funded Feb 1, 2019The first task that my students embarked on using our new resources was a multidisciplinary research project on animals and plants in the rain forest habitat. First, we read Jan Brett's book entitled "The Umbrella" which takes place in the Costa Rican rain forest. We learned that the author traveled to Costa Rica to do research on the plants and animals that live there in order to recreate them in her book. Because we as a class do not have the possibility to travel to a distant place to do research on the indigenous life, we learned that we could do research using nonfiction books and relevant websites to gain information on these topics. Each student had an animal to research. Next, students wrote up the knowledge they gained on their animal, and then they illustrated a poster depicting the environment their animal lived in. The class used the stencils, oil pastels, markers, paints, and crayons procured through the Donors Choose project. Finally, we created a large-scale mural demonstrating a scene from a rain forest. We discussed how the illustration helped us understand the story of "The Umbrella" better.
My students were incredibly excited to receive the art supplies, books, and cushions donated thanks to funds from our sponsors. We immediately unpacked the materials and celebrated by each choosing a cushion and a book to share with a friend. We got down on the floor, comfy on our cushions, and started exploring and enjoying the books.
The next multidisciplinary project we're going to tackle is similar to the one described above. The students so enjoyed combining art with literature and science that we will read another Jan Brett book, "Honey, Honey, Lion." The students will conduct research on the plants and animals of the African savannah, where the story takes place, and then create another large-scale mural depicting the natural environment of that habitat. We will be using our Donors Choose art supplies, cushions, and books, and the end results, the murals from both projects to date, will be decorating the walls in the hallway outside our classroom for the whole school to enjoy!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Bushnell
This classroom project was brought to life by Someone Who Cares and 10 other donors.Let's Read About the World Around Us!
Funded Dec 28, 2017Thanks to your generous donations, my Kindergarten class is now enjoying fabulous, beautifully illustrated National Geographic Kids books about animals. Students are learning new information about animals they love, like puppies, and some with which they are not very familiar, like sloths. In addition to gaining insight into new non-fiction content, my emerging readers are cementing their knowledge of sight words, and short three-letter words. By listening to the books being read to them on CDs, students hear correct pronunciation of words and gain fluency and automaticity by re-reading texts.
My Kindergarten students are just beginning to read. They are discovering that a whole new world opens up to them through books. I provide exciting and relevant texts, like the ones funded by this project, and encourage students to discuss what they read in different settings: in a whole-class group, in small groups, with a partner, and independently. The conversations sparked by reading are amazing!
The new National Geographic read-along books are enjoyed by all my students, without exception. They are always excited to tell me some new tidbit they learned about a shark, or zebra, or cat. They constantly make text-to-self connections about the animals they read about. They may relate a trip to the zoo they went on, for example, or what their puppy did yesterday. These new books will go a long way in spurring my budding readers to explore through reading.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Bushnell
This classroom project was brought to life by Anonymous Donor and 3 other donors.