Mrs. Estefani's Classroom Edit display name

Past projects 8

• Audio Books for Entertainment

  Funded Mar 16, 2023

  As a Pre-K teacher, one of the first things I tell families is this: "Reading with your child for at least 20 minutes is all they need to improve their speaking, increase their vocabulary, improve their questioning and reasoning and its a great way for them to learn about new topics and increase their curiosity."

  In my Pre-K classroom, the students are read a book daily but I did notice that students couldn't get enough from books. It makes it hard to read everyone's favorite book when you are 2 teachers for 18 favorite books. Thanks to the generous donors, I can now incorporate the listening center as a regular daily center because students cannot get enough of listening to their favorite books multiple times during the day.

  My students mostly enjoy books but I noticed that my Spanish speaking students are the ones that are enjoying the listening center the most because they get to hear books read to the class in Spanish twice a week and thanks to our listening center, listening to Spanish books can now be achieved everyday, even on English days.”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Estefani

  This classroom project was brought to life by an Anonymous Classroom Supporter and 15 other donors.

• Learning Over the Summer

  Funded Mar 30, 2023

  I always tell parents the importance of continuing their child's learning all year round. As a teacher, I can provide my students with play-based learning in the classroom but because of your generosity, my students now have the option of continuing their learning over the summer with a wonderful workbook to enhance their letter, number and writing skills.

  I can never express how grateful I am but know that your donation will now change the future of my Pre-K students and help them be one step closer into being kindergarten ready for the next school year.”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Estefani

  This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose Community and 7 other donors.

• Using Science and Engineering to Engage Young Minds

  Funded Mar 1, 2022

  Everytime I have a fully funded project, I can't wait for my students to find out of the wonderful surprise they are going to receive. I let them know about "The special project" that I wrote up for them and the purpose of the project.

  For this particular project, I told my kids that I wanted them to explore more of the science center and I wanted them to work on more STEAM activities. When the boxes arrives, the faces of the students was more than what I could've asked for. The curiosity what was in the box and the excitement to go into the science center was a teachers dream.

  As the students were modeled how to use the science viewers, of which they were able to see the different birds, insects, sea life and the various life cycles; it sparked students questioning. They were asking about the different animals, where they come from and where we find them. When they were able to explore with the microscope, it brought up more questions and even wanting the students to explore the school garden and see what was in the soil.

  Thanks to the viewers and the microscope, the animal unit in my Pre-K classroom was a success. The increase interest of the science center was a success and it was all because of you.”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Estefani

  This classroom project was brought to life by Valhalla Foundation and 5 other donors.

• Providing Pre-K Students With Books

  Funded Sep 25, 2021

  There are no words that can be used to describe how grateful we are for your support in helping us obtain books for our Pre-K classroom. These books will be used to create a more culturally balanced library. This means that students are exposed to books from other nationalities, empowering students to share thoughts. Integrating diverse work and study practices. Understanding student learning needs and styles.

  In my classroom, students have a library in the cozy corner and in the library you will find the text that are fitting for the monthly theme and culturally responsive text. When students go to the library during center time, students would ask a teacher to sit with them and read them a book. This routine has created and allow students to have a love for literature that pushes them to want to have more books read. All of the students in some shape or form, are enjoying the books. They like asking a teacher to read to them and they enjoy the quiet time they spend just looking at the illustrations of the texts.”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Estefani

  This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose Community and 7 other donors.

• Beautifully Written Labels With Cricut Joy!

  Funded Aug 13, 2021

  It has been a great pleasure to have our Cricut in the classroom. It has really helped our students begin to improve the letters and how they each look different. Students have enjoyed placing the letters of their names in their name puzzles and also have enjoyed using the Cricut to create some decorations for their classrooms and their projects.

  When we first received the package, the students were excited to have me open the box. The students were shocked when the square machine was taken out. They all had so many questions and they were amazing to hear. They all observe very intensely as I modeled using the Cricut. I showed them how to find the letters using the Cricut application, moving the letters around to make sure it fits on the cardstock paper. Then I clicked print and the machine started outlining the letters and their eyes opened wide as the machine started working. The student were amazed at how the letters came out of the paper and they enjoyed putting them in order to match their name.

  I can't thank you enough for helping us have another way to practice our learning.”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Estefani

  This classroom project was brought to life by Bill Gates and 11 other donors.

• Teacher Resources for Classroom and Virtual Learning

  Funded Sep 6, 2020

  As far as the 2020-2021 school year goes, it has been full of surprises. From coming in to school at the end of August to set up the classroom to finding out mid-September that you are teaching remotely to then be told the end of September that you will be teaching both in person and remotely. As a Pre-K teacher, I had to figure out a way to teach both my in person students and my remote students in a way where they won't feel that they have missed out on the learning.

  Thanks to these resources, I was able to provide parents with fun activities to do at home with their kids that helped them with learning their shapes, colors, letters and numbers and I was able to do the same activities with the students who were learning in school. Students who were coming to school on Group A days got the activities taught by me and on the days that Group A was home, the activity and materials were provided to parents to complete while I was teaching live in the classroom.

  Students never felt like the learning stopped because the resources provided instructions to parents and the clarity of the activities made them more fun. The poems provided in the texts were so relatable to students and I wanted to make sure that the students had them accessible to them to read with parents during our morning meeting like we do when they are at school. The poems were typed, color coordinated (for the color of the week poem) and pictures were added to help my Pre-K students "read" the poems at school or at home.

  Towards the end of the year, students felt such an ease with the routines of the poems, math activities, letter activities and name activities that the transitions between school and home became one and these resources really helped to make the connection between school and home an easy one.”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Estefani

• Doll Accessories for Dramatic Play Area

  Funded Aug 26, 2020

  This new resource came in at a very important time for my students. As we were learning about babies, students were having a difficult time taking care of a the baby dolls because we had no where to put the baby dolls to sleep. As a class, we talked about what babies need and thanks to a previous funded project, the students made the connection to the baby bottle, baby blanket, baby toys, baby clothes but after discussing, the students knew that a baby needs to sleep somewhere but had no baby crib to put the baby dolls in. As their teacher, we got creative and used a box to make a baby crib but the box got flimsy and broke apart.

  One morning, a box arrived and the students and I were so excited to open it and see what was inside. When I pulled out the crib, one student got so excited and said "our babies can sleep in it now. The crib is where babies sleep." My students were so observant that they realized that crib was missing the covers and pillow and they were even more excited when I pulled out the blanket set with pillow to go in the crib. This donation made the children so happy and they were able to use their imagination to play pretend with the baby dolls and the crib and they were able to get a better understanding of this unit just because of this wonderful gift.

  Now that my students will be going on to kindergarten, I hope that they will be able to use what they have learned about babies and use it to write how-to books or to write their all about babies books.”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Estefani

• Helping Students With Center Exploration

  Funded Aug 13, 2020

  I can never thank you enough for helping my students obtain the needed materials to use in our dramatic play area. In our dramatic play area, the students show their knowledge and understanding that individuals need to take care of themselves and others. In this center, students learn that individuals need to cook food to eat, they need to wash their clothes, do dishes, wash their hands, feed and take care of babies, and we convert the center each month to relate to the monthly theme that we are learning about to help enhance the learning.

  When I first showed the students the materials, their faces lit up with excitement. The shock of seeing the new baby dolls and their clothes brought so much joy to me. The students began talking about what they wanted to do with the baby dolls and which one they wanted to play with. I loved the fact that the students began to related to the baby dolls and gave them names. It showed the students understanding that everything has a name and we shouldn't call them baby dolls.

  The next steps for us are to learn and discuss the ways that we take of babies like learning to make baby food, learning to bathe them, learn how to change their diapers, learn how to put the babies to sleep and how to show love to a baby. This unit is essential for the students because it's how they learn about how they started and it leads up to learning about what they have learned to do.”

  With gratitude,

  Mrs. Estefani

  This classroom project was brought to life by Kleenex Brand and 7 other donors.