Rebuild Southgate Rippetoe Elementary

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Thank you so much for your wonderful donation! My students and I cannot wait to use the supplies that you have provided us with! A large welcoming rug is just what they need to sit on during activities and readings. The student are so excited about the comfortable new rug that you have helped provide them with!

We cannot express enough how grateful we are for this amazing project being funded. Thank you for everything you have done for not only my class, but our wonderful school as well! You have helped so much.”

With gratitude,

Ms. Wiseman

Thank you so much for the materials donated to my class! My students are so excited about our new center materials and smart board games! Centers are a very important part of our daily schedule and allow me as the teacher to identify and work on individual students' needs. These materials help us improve our reading fluency, academic and daily vocabulary, writing, math, and spelling practice, and much much more. The smart board games are great to help with remediation and advancement of skills learned in class, and the kids LOVE them! Thank you again for thinking of our class and our school!”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Roach

Thank you so much for your generous donation. These books are an awesome addition to our class library. My students love the nonfiction books about rocks, robots, and presidents. They love learning about Ruby Bridges and Martin Luther King Jr. We are also enjoying the books that teach us about metaphors and idioms. Many of the students' favorite book is the biography of Kevin Durant. Some students read these books during small group reading lessons, and others choose these books to read independently during their own time.”

With gratitude,

Ms. Walker

I can't thank you enough for the help with replacing our bulletin boards. After the flood in my room, our school was hit with a tornado. What bad luck! The items I received came after we moved buildings and were put into storage. We are just now being able to use them, and they have been such a wonderful help in decorating after moving back into our building. My side of the building has been redone and the side that was totally destroyed is now being rebuilt.

When the students saw the Christmas decorations they were overjoyed. We have a Title One school, and some of my students do not even have a Christmas tree at home. I can't wait to use the penguins for January and the hearts for Valentine's Day. The look on the students' faces is priceless. Thank you for helping make my room a happy place for children to come and learn.”

With gratitude,

Ms. Chastain

Thank you so very much for the iPad for our class. My students are so excited to use it as a reward for good behavior. We have several online programs that are being used in our school, and we have several school contests going on. The students get very excited when they have the opportunity to use the iPad. It is helping in reading and Math so much!

Our school has just begun using Achieve 3000 with our students and it is helping them gain so much in reading! Students are able to read nonfiction stories, which will prepare them for testing.

Many of our children are begging for time so that they can win the contest.

The other program we use regularly is Reflex Math. This is helping them learn their math facts, which is essential to their growth in math. Without your donation, none of this would be possible in my classroom, so thank you from the bottom of our hearts!”

With gratitude,

Ms. Chastain

I honestly don't even know where to begin. I am currently in my third year of teaching, and to have so much happen in such a short amount of time seems impossible. As a new teacher, most everything in my classroom when the tornado hit was personally bought by myself and my family to make my classroom more comfortable for students. As you can imagine, those costs tend to add up, and when the tornado hit it seemed that it was all for nothing.

My classroom was not at all destroyed, but this project helped me replace the things that were not recovered. The rug I received through the project was more suited for the classroom, and my students love having their own little squares. Along with that, they love the vibrant colors and set ups that we received. I was very upset after the tornado, as my Dr. Seuss calendar had not made the move and it was very special to me. Thanks to you it is replaced and used more than ever!

Thank you for helping make my classroom normal again. I can't put into words how meaningful it is to us!”

With gratitude,

Ms. Patterson

I am beyond excited about the wonderful materials I was able to get with my 'Becoming Better Writers' project. Writing is always a very trying subject to teach, and with the beginning writers I teach in first grade it can be even more challenging. Last year I felt that I did not have the resources available to teach students how to use their own mind to put their thoughts into words, and it became very frustrating on both sides.

When my packages first came in I could not wait to get to work. We started using our "pointer fingers" right away with our required reading, and I noticed right away that the students were able to keep up with the rest of the class better. They love having a handheld reminder of where they are in their stories! We also got to work with our word spacers. Since First graders are beginning readers, they often jumble their words into one big word. The word spacers help remind them to leave spaces between words, and our sentences have grown greatly! We also love using our easel to make lessons more mobile. It never stays in one place in our classroom! and it makes for great extra storage.

I cannot say thank you enough for these materials. After our school got hit by the tornado last year spirits were very down. It was amazing to start the year off with the new materials and hit the ground running!”

With gratitude,

Ms. Patterson

Thank you for all that you have done for our class, school, and district. Your commitment to excellence is reaching so many children. The materials you have provided for my classroom alone is shared with over 80 students on a weekly basis who enjoy them so much. They are so well behaved all morning because they look forward to practicing reading comprehension later in the day.

I feel so blessed that you chose to help our class. I have been able to expand my teaching with all the activities. The students who have struggled in the past to relate to certain topics are now starting to triumph because they get to interact with each other using the materials you helped to provide.

Thank you again for your donation!”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Martinez

Thank you so much for your dedication to our school district. With these supplies I have been able to provide an organized place for my students to store their center activities. The centers themselves are already making such a huge impact on students' learning in my class. They thoroughly enjoy practicing the skills hands on!

When the boxes arrived it felt like Christmas! They were so excited to see what was inside. My students have sworn to treat the materials with care so that they will last a long time. And so far they have! Every student cherishes these items because they are helping them become better readers. I love watching them challenge themselves to grow in their centers.

We have organized the activities in the cubbies so that when centers begin, groups know which ones to grab and begin using. They have adapted quickly to following the directions in each center and helping each other understand. I can't wait to see how much these items impact their learning this year. Your donation to our classroom has been a blessing.”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Martinez

Gratitude is what our classroom feels for your contribution of the Hokki Stools. Little things matter for my children and seeing who is going to have a chair that wiggles is one of the first items on the list when they walk into the door of my kindergarten room. My students are very appreciative of everything that is provided in school and the Hokki stools are a special item that is shared for every student since I have four stools and twenty four students.

The stools provide a calming mechanism for my little ones that need to get their wiggles out without ever having to be told to sit down or be still. The chairs provide the calm moving action that allows children to move safety. Kindergarten is the first time for learning how to operate in school. The limited number allows children to see that we have to learn how to share and take turns with things that we like in school. Every child can see their name on the list and can figure out what day they will get the wiggle chair. It is precious to see them bargain with me if they missed a day of school to find a way to make up a reason why they need the chair the next day. Great real world problem solving skills at their best.

Thank you very much for supporting public school education. As a teacher in Oklahoma, I appreciate your willingness to help those in need with your resources. I believe I have a very important job in making the future leaders of tomorrow. I do not think I can do it alone without parents, administrators and important people like you that make a difference with your private donations. Thank you again for your kindness and support.”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Mayes-Hancock