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KIDS
PRINT
Through
a grant from New Mexico
Association of Classroom
Teachers the special education
team at
Taylor
Elementary
has been able to purchase a
color printer with supplies to
be used to improve student
learning.
The students have used
the printer to print creative
writing assignments, print
information from the Internet
for assignments, and create
learning materials.
Knowing they could
print and enhance their
creative writing assignments
with graphics, the students
were more motivated to write.
They are able to bring
their writing to life by using
graphics downloaded from the
Internet.
For example, the
students each wrote a Haiku
about butterflies.
They thoroughly enjoyed
researching the Internet for
graphics and printing them to
illustrate their poems.
Information,
photographs, and graphics have
been collected and printed in
beautiful color from the
Internet to enhance regular
education curriculum.
The children have been
more enthusiastic about their
assignments.
Learning has been more
fun and they are excited about
doing and completing their
assignments.
One example of
students’ work on the
computer is downloading
pictures and information from
the Internet and printing them
in order to create a time-line
of the Civil War. Another
example is a student-created
and printed full color power
point about him-self that is
to be presented to his regular
sixth grade class.
Learning
materials were created using the
printer because color graphics
help students learn better.
Color stimulates their
brain and it helps them to better
recall the information in a
testing situation.
For example, color flash
cards were produced for students
with poor memory to enhance the
learning of sight words and
vocabulary.
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Book
on
Tape Brings
Excitement
to Classes
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My
sophomore class is listening
to the audiotape Of Mice and
Men, read by
Gary
Sinise
. My students are more
involved than when I have read
or had them take turns reading
because of the excellent job
Mr.
Sinise
does of giving each character
in the novel a unique voice. I
am able to walk and monitor
the room, stopping the tape
when a student has a question,
or I want to make a point.
Thank you again for fulfilling
my grant request.
Linda
Fuchs
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What
do strings and kings have
in common?
They
are both in the after
school programs that
Bill
Albee
and
Nancy
Foley
are conducting on
Mondays.
They had a huge
response at sign-ups for
their weekly guitar
club.
The numbers of
students in the second
and third grades were so
great they had to split
the classes. The third
graders were granted the
fall semester followed
by the second graders in
the spring semester.
Joyfully, they will all
get to learn to strum
and hum.
Students will
learn basic chords for
simple folk songs, strum
and finger picking
patterns, simple
notation, as well as
proper tuning
techniques. A session
from 2:30 to 3:00 and an
after-school time from
3:15 to 4:00 allow for
greater student
participation. They hope
to demonstrate student
learning at a December
PEP meeting.
Now
that we have the strings
part of this project,
where are the kings?
They come with
the chess club. The
chess club serves to
enhance and compliment
their Every Day Math
curriculum. The district
math coordinator,
Kathy
Price
, is currently teaching
chess and organizing
tournaments as part of
the math curriculum. The
Chess club will offer
students a way to
practice skills and
develop higher-level and
critical thinking
skills.
The
best king of all is Bill
Albee
for his willingness to
teach and dream.
Congratulations to this
wonderful
project. Check
Mate!
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Kathleen
Miller uses NMACT Grant to develop Math skills in fifth graders.
Kathleen Miller
received a grant of $500. for NMACT.
She purchased the Star Math Program.
This program is the diagnostic tool that goes with the
Accelerated Math Program. About
four weeks after receiving the program
she was able to get started with Accelerated Math program and the
students love it. The accelerated Math program allowed the students
to work at their own pace, get extra help in areas that they are not
doing well, and enrich their knowledge and go beyond the classroom
instruction. It is used in both fifth grades in her building.
Our desire in
using this program is to help the students improve in their math
skills and have a need for expanding the assignments available to
them at this time.
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Beth Stegemoeller, Taylor Kindergarten
teacher,
works with a group using the new easy
to read take-home books from the KEEP
BOOK program. These books were made
available through the NMACT
"Think Kids Grant." These
books provide a way to get reading
materials home therefore encouraging
parents to read with their children.
Hopefully, the students will read and
reread the materials over the summer
and retain more of their reading
skills for the next school year.
Taylor Elementary is committed, as is
HACT and NMACT, to student and parent
school success. A special note: Again,
many thanks to NMACT from Julia M.
Chaney, the reading specialist at
Taylor for the opportunity to apply
for the grant. It is wonderful to see
teachers and students excited about
reading. And that is exactly what
happens when the kindergartners are
given their own little books!
2002
NMACT Awards
Dianne
Soderfelt, Kindergarten teacher
I was very fortunate to receive an
NMACT Grant. I ordered math
manipulatives through Lakeshore
Company. When Lakeshore heard that the
items I was ordering was for a grant
to a Kindergarten class, they told me
that I would not be charged shipping,
so that I could order more items.
The manipulatives arrived the day
before our Open House, so I was able
to display the hands-on math items on
the big table for all the parents to
view. The parents had many favorable
comments about them. One father told
me that I would be creating some
future engineers. The mothers liked
the little quilt squares in which the
students could create patterns, which
is very important in Kindergarten
math.
My students liked the fishing game in
which they fished for numbers. This
really helped them in number
recognition. They also like the
triangles, which helped the students,
develop sets 1-10. The number tubs
with bears, frogs, and pigs also are
very useful for recognizing numbers.
The hundreds hanging chart has been so
helpful in counting, and the graph has
helped my students learn about sizes.
The lacing items helped my students
develop their small muscles.
All of the items ordered have proven
to be very useful in my classroom. I
am very grateful to NMACT for awarding
this grant to me.
Margie
Barker, Kindergarten, teacher
Changing grade levels creates new
challenges to conquer. When I changed
to kindergarten from first grade, I
needed ways to make learning the
repetitive activities fun. I knew that
music would fill this need, but I was
not very good at singing, so I wanted
a tape and CD player to fill this
void. With the "Think Kids"
Grant from NMACT, I not only purchased
a double tape-CD player, but many
exciting tapes and CD's that enhance
my curriculum wonderfully.
We are learning the months of the year
and days of the week with Hap Palmer,
both in English and Spanish. It is
inspirational to see the students sing
the song when you ask them to name a
month after another month. It also
stretches us all to learn things in
other languages. This includes the
tape that says the numbers from one to
ten in German.
Science and Social Studies are also
enhanced with the music. "Bear
Facts" was fun while we studied
the letter "B". The students
can explain about hibernation as well
as other facts about the furry
creature. Dinosaurs are a favorite of
mine and the students.
Skills such as rhyming, counting, and
spelling become fun and memorable
which makes teaching fun for me and
exciting for the students. I would not
teach kindergarten without this
wonderful tool. Thank you ACT for
making this possible.
Robin
Price, Biology and Botany teacher
This fall we began the process of
growing pinion trees. As a botany
teacher I was looking for a way to
interest my students in conversation,
preservation and the field of botany.
The pinion tree is a part of New
Mexico that shares this special
connection to all of these areas. This
project allows the students to be
creative in designing experiments.
They can study how to plant seeds,
growing conditions for seedlings
transplanting seedlings as well as
taking cuttings and grafting. This
project will allow the fist class to
see small steps, but as the years
progress, future classes will be given
a greater spectrum for seeing the many
levels of development.
This project can also show the many
aspects of the field of botany and may
entice some budding scientist to make
a career out of tree care.
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