Many of my students enter first grade barely knowing letter sounds and at the end of the year, leave reading and writing. My goal is to create environment where students come to school ready to learn. I want my students to feel connected to our school and find value in their place of learning.
My students are a beautiful example of a cultural mosaic, representing countries across the globe.
Our school is considered high poverty and ranges grades K-8. My first graders arrive eager to learn, radiating joy. One of our school wide goals is to bridge the gap between the upper and lower grades, creating an overall sense of community and belonging throughout the school.
My Project
I am the Tech Teacher Leader and work with the Instructional Leadership Team to promote community and leadership at school. This past fall, we created a teacher rules video that showed teachers misbehaving and then correcting their behavior. It involved many staff members, including the principal doing cartwheels in the hallway- a clip that every student, parent, and staff member was talking about for weeks afterward. Our school needs video filming and editing equipment and Apple is a leader in the field of user-friendly movie editing software. In a world that increasingly relies on advanced technical skills, we are not only teaching students as young as six the power of multimedia presentations, but giving them the tools to create masterpieces of their own. This equipment will enable my first grade students to be the catalyst for a school wide movement of communicating the school procedures and creating a sense of community across the grade levels using multimedia.
These donations will provide countless opportunities to foster community building and recognize academic achievement.
Students will not only film but also participate in movies to be used as teaching materials in class, as well as school wide assemblies. These assemblies include Student of the Month, a program that highlights character traits, such as courage, as well as perfect attendance each month. We also have School Spirit Weeks and can show a glimpse of what is going on around campus.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Spafford and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.