“If real learning is to take place, our classrooms must be dependent on the collaboration of its learners, not solely on the knowledge of its teachers,” Robert John Meehan said. This projector and cart will give our students access to new resources and share their work with each other.
As an ESL Teacher, I co-teach in two Kindergarten classrooms in an urban Midwestern school, with students from diverse city neighborhoods and backgrounds.
Many of these kids speak English as a second language and struggle with reading and writing because of language differences. Our students also have a wide range of learning needs and styles. Many of our students do not have access to rich literature or educational technology at home. They need visuals and other supports to access learning.
These young learners are hard workers, are creative and energetic, and have big imaginations. They love listening to and learning to write stories. They also love working together, are eager to learn, and are especially excited about using new technology to learn! Our Kindergarten teaching team’s goal this year is to help all our students develop collaborative communication and academic language skills.
My Project
Our young students need visual supports and shared learning experiences to be successful. This new projector will give these to our students. We will project books we read together so all students can clearly see the words. They will learn reading skills like letters, sounds, and basic word. Students will also interact with the language in these shared books, using complex vocabulary, sentence structures, and story ideas from high quality children’s books as models to build their own. Projecting pictures and videos will increase understanding of science topics and provide visual supports for academic discussions. When students create stories or solve math problems using the classroom iPads, we will project and share their work. The students and teacher will collaboratively create multimedia projects, like books and content-related videos. We will write and illustrate a digital book together as a class, record audio, and students can read and listen to it for the rest of the year.
An LCD projector will give these children new ways to learn and work together.
By reading and creating stories, videos, and other kinds of texts, students will be able to practice all parts of language – listening, speaking, reading, and writing – in new and powerful ways. By creating stories and playing with language together, these kids will understand and take on more complex school language. Students will learn important collaboration skills along with reading and language skills.
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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. Peel and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.