Almost Ready for Robotics

We received a generous donation on Donors Choose from a Kirkwood High School graduate and Bill and Melinda Gates' Foundation! We received our package of Legos and finally had a chance to open them in our classroom!

We are now waiting for our other project proposal to get funded on Donors Choose so that we can finally try out Robotics in our 4th grade classroom! If you're interested in learning more about the proposal, check it out here!

Closing the Gap with Legos!

Back in March, I read an article that argued that we are losing the attention of male students in the classroom. As a few educators and I discussed this problem, an idea that surfaced was using Legos to provide opportunities for all students to engage in what we're learning. So I jumped on that idea and logged into Donors Choose and started writing a grant proposal.

Below is what I wrote to attract potential donors:

"How will you show GRIT today?" That's our school theme of this year (and quite possibly every year from now on). We are choosing to persevere every day, even when it's hard because that is the biggest predictor of success!

My students are from diverse backgrounds. They love to collaborate and challenge one another's thinking. Students in our school receive free and reduced lunch and have a plethora of issues poring into the classrooms, but the adults in our school make it about the successes of these children! They have a great potential to not just merely survive in the real world, but succeed and impact life on the outside of our building walls.

Have you heard about the gender gap? Did you know that our boys are losing interest in schools?!?! We make them sit down, read a book, respond (talk or write) to the book, and so forth. These are activities in which boys normally dislike! So why aren't they engaged in school, we ask?

I am asking for Legos so that our boys will have a chance to rip apart, build, design, create, demolish, recreate, and put in motion what they are learning. And I bet these Legos won't be interesting just to boys! All students can be engaged in their learning by doing! Kinesthetic learning is so important for young children!

Legos can open the doors to robotics, STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) projects, literacy, and so much more!

Students of all diverse backgrounds will have a chance to take apart, put together, create and/or recreate designs that will challenge their minds. They will have all kinds of options to demonstrate their learning: creating a Lego representation, making a stop-action movie with Legos, and so forth.

This project makes me excited because it has the capability to reach the learners who aren't always excited to be engaged with a book! Girls, boys, readers, non-readers, everyone!

This project was funded within a month! And when my students found out, they were excited...but the excitement was more apparent once they were able to use them for a free-create session!

Choose Donors Choose!

If you didn't already know, I taught in the Chicago Public Schools for three years before moving to St. Louis. And if you didn't already know, it's rough being a teacher in the CPS. Why? Well, I could create a long list of the reasons why, but I'll just tell you what I learned to do most.

I learned to advocate for my needs as a teacher in terms of resources. My first year of teaching, I received thirty-seven books ($324) to use as mentor texts in writing. My second year of teaching, I received a kidney table ($263) where I could instruct small groups in reading, writing, and math. My third year of teaching, I received an interactive whiteboard ($2,298) so that students could learn to use technology; I also received a grant that helped me purchase $500 worth of books for my classroom library; and I also received a $700 grant that would help pay for a field trip for my class.

Wow. That adds up to $4,085!

So when I moved to St. Louis, I wasn't about to give up on receiving free materials that would help my students succeed in the classroom! Have you heard about DonorsChoose.org? It's a website where public school teachers can post project requests which range from a writing utensil to technology and generous donors donate to these projects! It's where I received my thirty-seven mentor texts, my kidney table, and my interactive whiteboard! Some of my donors were anonymous, some were strangers, and some were family and friends! It doesn't matter if you know them or don't, because all of these donors have hearts of gold!

Well, my fifth year of teaching comes along and I thought I'd try asking again for a generous donation: I asked for twenty-five exercise balls to help students channel their innate need for movement on these ergonomic chairs! Since these balls require balance, students are constantly engaging their core muscles, and helps students focus at the task at hand! (Read more about my request here: http://www.donorschoose.org/mrs.gh) It has only been a couple of weeks, but we have already set up specific rules/norms on how to sit on the balls and when sitting on these balls might be more advantageous to our bodies.

We can't wait to reap the benefits from these wonderful resources in our classroom! And now I'm up to $4,547 in grant money! :)