Donors Choose:
Improving the learning lesson for Kindergartners

Ms. Robinson is working with her 30 kindergartners to make the academic gains necessary to start reading.

As part of the process, pictures are the key to helping them practice sounds and letters. Kindergartners can practice phonemic awareness skills by matching pictures of rhyming words, sorting pictures of words that begin with the same sound, and completing many other activities that will prepare them to sound out words. And while Ms. Robinson has found a good supply of printable pictures for these activities, she fears that the activities use far too much of the school's limited paper supply printing replacement copies. [READ MORE]

Donors Choose:
Using puppets to improve social interactions

February 14, 2010

Ms. Robinson tells her 30 kindergartners that before anybody in our classroom can learn, it needs to be a safe, happy place. However, in our charter school's high-need, inner-city area, many kindergartners have not had preschool or other experiences interacting with children their age. This can sometimes make it difficult to build a caring classroom community.

With little experience being among peers, many of her kindergartners come to school lacking the social skills needed to interact positively with their classmates. They simply have never encountered situations as simple as being bumped into while in line or being called a mean name. Yet for learning to occur, she needed to make her classroom a comfortable place where students can address problems in appropriate and productive ways. [READ MORE]

Donors Choose:
The skeleton to provide structure to young minds

Ms. Spoth's students want to be challenged!

She teaches science to grades 9-12. Overwhelmingly, her students' interests lie in the medical field. By their request, she's offering anatomy and physiology this coming semester, and many of them are really looking forward to getting their first glimpse into a medicine-related course.

While there is enthusiasm about this new offering at the school, the classroom is devoid of any materials to help anatomy and physiology come alive to them. While this topic is one that can be easily observed and understood with the proper materials, Ms. Spoth felt without the proper materials it can become a task of memorizing terms that don't mean anything to students. [READ MORE]

From the Principal:
Happy New Year!

We have begun what I will frequently be referring to “Excellence Again in 2010” and I am excited at what we will accomplish this year.

A couple of changes have already started this year. First, we have changed lunch room food vendors. We now enjoy the wonderful food of Jay R’s Steel City Catering. Hopefully, your students have come home delighted with the new food, service and professionalism.

Secondly, in the event that school is called off due to bad weather the information will be on all major TV stations: CBS 2, Chicago 5, ABC Chicago 7, WGN News, FOX Thirty-two, and CLTV News as well as you will receive a Connect ED phone call by 6:30am to your house. [READ MORE]