Our students are extremely creative and inquisitive. They love engaging in problem-solving activities, especially those related to the real world, and they are very solution oriented. They are driven to come up with ways to help build or strengthen their community, always thinking about the world outside of themselves. Their empathy for others is inspiring and their desire to do good for others is contagious. Because of their desire to learn and engage in projects that have a bigger purpose, we know that they are truly capable of changing our community in positive ways.
My Project
Having students work with the Lego and LittleBits kits will help continue to develop their inquisitive nature and inquiry skills. It will also foster collaboration between students within and between grade levels. They will work together to build and code projects and this will give them a chance to work on their communication skills. They will learn how to handle disagreements and collectively problem solve to come to compromises to complete tasks.
The Lego and LittleBits kits will also give the students very high-level academic tasks that don't feel like "schoolwork" but are instead more fun and highly engaging because they are hands-on.
As with any school, we have students who struggle greatly with connecting to school. Often it seems like they are checked out because they struggle academically or socially, or they have so many challenges in their personal lives that it can be hard to focus on school. In communicating with other schools in our neighborhood who have created MakerSpaces in their buildings, which is our intention with these materials, they have stated that they have seen a great improvement in attendance with their students and with motivation to complete schoolwork and participate in school activities. We would like to get these coding kits so that we can also improve our students' engagement and motivation in school by providing exciting experiential learning opportunities, that also would tie very well to our science and math curriculums and therefore build critical academic skills that students need to prepare for real-world careers.
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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 Mrs. Keleher and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
