course over..transition time

This blogging project has been interesting this semester. It is not something I had previously done and it does provide an open communication point for outside people and friends & family to keep posted on current events and happenings. Since It has been a great way to keep up on the day to day drama, I am going to continue to utilize this blog but with more personal, less academic content. I will however continue to post information related to grantwriting that I come across and feel may be helpful.

One more grant to try.

My youngest child's pre-k teacher asked me to look into getting a grant to take the prek-ers on a field trip to the zoo this year. So we will try to work on that his week. I'll keep everyone posted.

One last vacation picture, taken before they realized we were going home the next day.

Thankful

Here are a few glimpses of the restful Thanksgiving we had at West Point Lake cabins. What a great anti-chaos weekend it was with family driving in to do a pot-luck style meal.

One passes by

I did get notification that the large LEGO grant for around $5400 did not get funded due to financial concerns of the Amgen Foundation. I think I may resubmit it elsewhere though, and see what happens.

I will post some good sites for grant seekers before this is finished.

Happy Halloween!

One more grant funded!

Ok, I was happy with the 5 out of seven, but then received a letter from the Junior League stating that I received the one I wrote for cyberchase and leveled math manipulatives, too!
Yeah!!
So 6 out of those seven is fantastic. I will attend a banquet on january 22 to accept the funds for mine and be present as my co-workers accept theirs.
then, we start shopping!

Whooo Hoo!

Here's a picture I got from my phone a few weeks ago. I just found out the results of some of my Junior League grants....

Drumroll please...

We received funding for 5 of the original 7 and partial funding for one more. Yeah!!

I guess there is some sort of gala event on January 23rd at which we receive the money. Anyway, that is not bad.

The funny part is, the 2 grants that didn't get funded were the one I did on the day they were due in about 45 minutes, and...................

mine.

:-)

here's some arcade repair pics from earlier this year.

New Giant grant

Okay, I have been working hard on a new grant for a lot more than the mini-grants. it is fro about $5300 worth of Lego Education Classroom sets to teach all the science GPS for 4th grade relating to simple machines. Thay have a fabulous educational department with incredible sets of materials. The kits are all aligned to national standards and include step by step instructional DVDs to teach each step of the buliding process. I tried for the lever kit, pulley kit, wheels & axles, gears, wedge, etc, along with some of the circuit building and introduction to robotics. I think the kids will love it! I wrote in enough for the three fourth grade classes of 24. I hope we get it!

I will keep you posted.

surprise

Okay, I got the nicest surprise at work yesterday. When I got to my room, turned on the lights, promethean board, computer, put down my work bag, etc. I saw a card placed strategically on my computer keyboard. It was a thank you card from the teachers for whom I wrote a grant. All of them signed it and chipped in to get a gift certificate for a restaraunt and a Brewster's ice cream place, so I could atke a night off cooking for the kids. HOW COOL IS THAT!? Anyway, I was very moved by the thoughtfulness. Now, I will feel very poorly if all of the applications get declined. I have had several others ask what you can write a grant for? I may compile a list of ideas for things I have seen or thought of. I also wrote a BIG grant today for a little over $5000. I want to use Lego education sets to teach science units on simple and complex machines. They have entire classrooms sets wiht guide books and videos. It's really neat!
We will all hope for the best. i'll keep you posted.

2 more grant summaries

GRANT TITLE ___Comprehension Number Extension ___________


GRADE(S) __Second

1. Project Description: What do you want to do and why have you chosen this project? State clearly and be creative.
Children develop math skills at different rates and in different ways. A common problem is that a child has trouble remembering math problems no matter how many times they review them. It's important to stimulate a child's mind in various ways to reach him as an individual and build a connection between his mind and the material he needs to master in school. With so much emphasis placed on understanding concepts way beyond just being able to do calculations correctly, a greater responsibility ends up landing squarely in the lap of reading comprehension and logical thinking skills. There are numerous ways we can help students achieve better in math. I would like to utilize an interdisciplinary approach providing resources that do not mask the reading comprehension component, but work with it to develop good problem solving skills that can be applied unilaterally to all future education settings. The academic structure used to be focused on learning basic skills all through elementary school and shift toward application and extension in middle school and High school, so the thinking, and analyzing could occur in college. This philosophy has diminished and transformed into a spiraling technique that relies on the understanding of simple concepts being able to be manipulated successfully. The thinking skills are a constant extension of all daily practice, so that with more complicated material to learn to focus can be on the new information, not on how to use it. I have chosen this project to strengthen math skills with successful research-based resources to improve thinking, comprehension, and processing skills. There is no provision in the county curriculum budget for these related skills out of context.

2. Objectives: What are your goals? What type of growth do you expect the participants to demonstrate? The objective should be realistic in terms of methods, staff, space, time, and student involvement.
According to the State Department of Education, “Several years of research has yielded much information about how children learn to read. This research tells us that to become more skilled and confident readers over time, students need multiple opportunities to build essential skills. In their formative years of instruction, children must be read to and provided opportunities to practice independent reading. Children must develop their ability to read with fluency and understanding in order to build their knowledge of the world.” This knowledge of the world comes with the need for life skills and logical reasoning sufficient to recognize through the language, what mathematical construct exists so it can be solved. The activity resources listed provide daily independent opportunities for students to rapidly ramp up their comprehension and subsequently improve in all curricular areas. There is enough variety to avoid declining interest levels while continuing to assist the student with achieving successful educational experiences.


GRANT TITLE ___If you’re ‘Hoppy’ and you know it, play a game! ___________


GRADE(S) __Third__________


1. Project Description: What do you want to do and why have you chosen this project? State clearly and be creative.
I am fortunate enough to teach in a school where we have active parents who want to help their children succeed. They have lots of opportunities, but are sometimes unsure of appropriate strategies to assist their children at home. Academics have changed dramatically since the parents were in school, and it gets more difficult to send meaningful work home that is not repetitive practice sheets. The demographics of our school are a majority of hard-working families who make sacrifices to provide a good education for their children by residing in a very small school district. This results in not having the huge discretionary funds that title one schools enjoy, and use to purchase these types of exciting educational games. I would like to acquire a set of family practice games that can be sent home with each student weekly to reinforce sound educational objectives while also improving the paths of communication between school and home, and requiring some home discussion of the objectives learned in school.

2. Objectives: What are your goals? What type of growth do you expect the participants to demonstrate? The objective should be realistic in terms of methods, staff, space, time, and student involvement.

The goals of this project are to provide interesting fun games for each student to practice as homework with a family member to reinforce the learning goals taught in school. Frog Publications has created an innovative system that includes these games as a working component.
According to the research on their website (http://www.frog.com/ ):
“Since 1997 Frog Publications educational materials have been used by every school adopting the HOSTS (Helping One Child To Succeed) Learning Program which is specifically named in the No Child Left Behind Act as an example of an effective program”….and about these learning games specifically, “The Family Fun-Pack Program (FFP) is a research-based parental involvement, test preparation, and homework program published by Frog Publications, Tampa, FL. It provides systematic self-checking practice and review of 25 skills with built-in reinforcement to promote long-term memory. This systematic daily practice assures that commonly taught and tested skills, vocabulary, and concepts are maintained and strengthened. The practice is formatted as a series of games to increase the likelihood of children and parents’ willing and cooperative participation. The same directions are used throughout FFP, so parents do not have to spend valuable time figuring out what to do with the material. They can use that time to give attention to their child as they use FFP materials. FFP combines the best elements of two other research-based Frog Publications programs into a teacher-friendly and family-friendly program that makes nightly review at home enjoyable and productive. The brief, consistent daily review of essential academic skills (from Drops in the Bucket) is combined with the learning and motivational features and easy consistent directions (from Frog System Learning Games). The result of that combination is a 24-week program of skill-review games, prepackaged in tough vinyl pouches to save teacher time. Students exchange their FFP game each week for a one that reviews the same 25 skills using different questions and a different colorful game board.”
This is a proven method to help all children succeed, and the expectation is that greater numbers of students will be completing homework, they may need less remediation or redelivery in class of tasks taught in the games at home, and it will help foster a community of learning as the families discuss their experiences with the games since they will rotate weekly.

Grants written

Here is a synopsis of a couple of the grants I wrote in the last few weeks:

GRANT TITLE ___Can we do Science?___________


GRADE(S) __Fourth__________


1. Project Description: What do you want to do and why have you chosen this project? State clearly and be creative.

Dekalb County has adopted new science performance standards to adjust the method in which we deliver science instruction. There is a move toward inquiry-based lessons, but this is not commensurate with the materials to implement this successfully. We would like to implement an inquiry –based approach to the major units of science to improve the absorption of material and concepts. Inquiry based curriculum has been shown to develop independent and critical thinking skills, positive attitudes and curiosity toward science and increased achievement in biological content (Hall & McCudy, 1990), (Kyle et al, 1988), (Kyle et al, 1982), and (Shymansky, 1984). Leonard (1983) showed that university students who completed a semester long introductory biology laboratory designed on inquiry based approaches achieved 6% higher grades on biology content exams as opposed to the control group which completed a more traditional information-transmission modeled laboratory. A critical component to the success of this strategy is student interest and involvement. We would like to utilize more engaging resources in an effort to guide the students toward inquiry based learning.


2. Objectives: What are your goals? What type of growth do you expect the participants to demonstrate? The objective should be realistic in terms of methods, staff, space, time, and student involvement.

In this diverse culture, we have students with varying abilities and backgrounds. Some subject areas lend themselves to accommodate for past inattention or resources, by allowing the possibility of success through family involvement, such as reading. The subject of science is completely different. The best mode of information transfer is through hands on learning and methods to demonstrate and practice the skills used. The goals of this project would be to implement the engaging activities and resources during the allotted science time, as well as use them to reinforce these skills during other center activity times. This will also allow for the integration of other subject areas as related to science, not secluded where each subject is isolated in the knowledge contained. I would expect the participants to show growth in idea development, and the application of the scientific process to issues and questions the find in everyday experiences.

GRANT TITLE ____Cyberchase the Numbers Away____________


GRADE(S) ___Fourth_________


1. Project Description: What do you want to do and why have you chosen this project? State clearly and be creative.
In an attempt to improve the transfer of mathematical concepts and improve retention of critical information, I would like to utilize technology to engage students in hands-on math activities and provide them with interesting correlated manipulatives to demonstrate their mastery of complex concepts. The demographic make-up of this class is unique in that we have deaf students, struggling students, accomplished students, and gifted students. This class is comprised of 23 students who encompass a vast range of ability levels. We are a co-taught inclusion class for deaf or hard of hearing students being mainstreamed in our regular education classroom, as well as a cluster model classroom for gifted instruction for four segments each day. This project will capitalize on the technology interest factor as well as rely on the proven educational excellence provided through the Public Broadcasting System programming. PBS has developed the program Cyberchase which is aligned to the national math standards. There are about 250 episodes in circulation with educator license to copy and use for a year after each recording. This program is available to download episodes from itunes for a small expense. Due to changing technology, it is difficult to record these episodes when they air, and nearly impossible to record onto DVD for use in class projectors. We embrace technology as a critical tool in nearly all our instruction. We utilize an Activboard consistently to appeal to the varied learning styles represented in this group. Research has proven that the visual and hands-on manipulatives greatly improve the learning outcomes for students with disabilities, especially those with an auditory deficiency. By selecting manipulatives from a variety of ability levels; above, on, and under grade-level expectations, we can further differentiate instruction to meet all students’ needs without obvious leveling which could result in lower self-esteem.


2. Objectives: What are your goals? What type of growth do you expect the participants to demonstrate? The objective should be realistic in terms of methods, staff, space, time, and student involvement.

The goal of this project is to create a stronger, more concrete link between math concepts expected to be mastered and application of these in everyday life. I expect the participants to be able to identify, articulate, and apply these math concepts independently as a result of the multiple strategies used to demonstrate mastery. The goals vary according to students’ needs and abilities. The lower level students should be able to demonstrate improvement in the Math section of standardized tests addressing these components to a level that meets expectations as evidenced on the CRCT. The average students should see greater improvement in these areas as well, while applying these concepts to more complex situations thus improving the math scores as they pertain to word problems and applications that require more than one operation to complete. The gifted students will be expected to draw more conclusions and generalizations from the mathematical information, as well as making abstract and cross-curricular connections showing greater depth of knowledge.

all play and no work...at least until school started

My son and his friend meet Chip Foose, his favorite car designer, at a recent event!
Here's a little video souvenir from a "field trip" about a month ago.

Oh my Gosh!

I was beginning to worry that not many people would be interested. I know it sounds crazy, but the interest was not very dramatic. That's okay though, because I just found out the Deadline is tomorrow!
Yes, tomorrow, October 3, 2008.
I called to se eif it's a postmark date or a real delivery date. they must receive it by close of business Friday. Luckily there is a drop spot in the door and its only about 5 miles away. :-)

Several faculty members asked me to write a grant at Yesterday's faculty meeting, so I pretty much ignored everything else and worked 24/7 on them to see how far I could get.
The good news is I was able to write 6 more grants in 24 hours.
The bad news is, I'm too tired to tell about it today. I just wanted to post so people knew I really was working on the project and being very creative and productive. I'll post more later.

phew!

Ok, things have been going fine on the grant-writing front. Apparently Google thought my "e-mail had been compromised" and blocked access for about 10 days!! Yikes. Sorry for the delay.
The tally so far is 8 people have requested and/or accepted my offer to write a Junior League grant for them. I have completed 2 so far.

One entitled "Cyberchase the numbers away" which uses the PBS program Cyberchase to provide an engaging anticipatory set for some hands on math games. These hands-on materials are special because they are manufactured by the same company but the difficulty is embeded in the activity questions and procedures so that the ability grouping would not so apparent. It will address the broad range of abilities in heterogeneous classrooms while preserving the dignity of all. This is the antithesis of the Bluebirds, red robins grouping.

The second one is incorporating the inquiry process in science by providing scaffolding for the new County standards and newly adopted textbook. It has some great manipulatives and fabulous structure to allow and encourage the asking of questions, "what if....", and the testing of the students' hypotheses in cause-effect relationships.

I will keep posting to see how things unfold.... that gives me an idea.

Maybe I should do one on "Ori-geometry"

grants for all

OK, I have come up with an idea for my creative project that appeals to my productive side as well. I have decided to make a grant-writing challenge to all the teachers at my school. I have applied for Junior League mini-grants before and had alot of success. As I read the requirements I noticed that one teacher can be the secondary applicant for an unlimited number of grant applications. It also stated that no two identical applications would be funded.

So I sent the school the following proposal via e-mail:
"Hi there. I have to do a "new creative endeavor" for my grad school class and blog about it a few times a week. Since we don't have time to waste on hobbies :-) that are not productive, I decided to try and see how many junior league grants we could get in one year. The guidelines state that "A teacher may submit as many applications as they want as secondary applicants." This is my offer to you. I am willing to write up a grant for anyone if you tell me what you want and point me in the direction of a GPS you think it would address. I will write a grant for every teacher in the school if asked. You will be the primary and I will just be listedc as secondary applicant if anyone has questions. I will not make any guarantees, but it will really cool to see how far we go. I did not see any limit listed on the application information. If you know otherwise, fill me in!"

Since you cannot have duplicate requests and they fund based on creativity and innovation of projects, it will stretch my creative strength. I already have had 3 takers. One for a listening library in first grade, one to create a period specific art artifact for each grade level depicting the period of time they study in social studies, and one "yes!!! but I'm not sure yet. Now that one project is for a listening library, that item will be considered "taken" and other requests will need to be something different. I think it will be great. I am familiar with some GPS of different grade levels but this will help me with some vertical curriculum alignment as well. I will keep you posted on the progress.

ideas

I like the idea of creative projects and have a lot. I don't want thisto sound as if I don't think a creative endeavor is a good idea. I like to try new things, too. I think my point-of-view is that I have alot of those already. Most of which were stumbled upon. Maybe it will make more sense to see what I mean. First, I will give a little background on what I have learned while on my everyday path. Most of these skills were icked up under the auspices of frugality. I figured if I could learn to do something cheaply, I'd rather not give the profit to anyone. :)I have a short list of possible things to tackle and I think I have found a project.

• When trying to redecorate my daughters room I learned to sew curtains, pillows and bedroom sets.
• When she wanted a unique fashion statement that was within our modesty guidelines, I tackled making doll and girls' dresses.
• In order to repair or buy needed furniture pieces cheaply, I have learned how to build furniture from kits and modify (not build from scratch). They actually give you step-by-step directions...with pictures of each step!
• So communication would be easier and to check translations of opera lyrics, I studied Latin, Spanish, and Italian I can now read and/or understand a few different laguages.
• In order to help with the needed downpayment to buy our house, I got a Real Estate license.
• Whe working for the Child Protection Unit in Gwinnett County, I need a permit to carry a firearm.
• I have done arts and crafts for everyone from 2 yrs old to senior citizens.
• I have directed vacation bible school.
• I have sung in choirs, at churches, in jazz groups, and even got a small record sampler recorded a long time ago.
• I have written articles and short stories.
• I have made movies and taught computer skills to perform my job more efficiently.
• I bake cookies and muffins and delier to teachers during stressful times.
• I recreate county documents to make them more effective and user-friendly.
• I have a small notebook of inventions, poems, and songs that I may get to someday. I think I may be forced to open that invention journal before semester's end. :-)
• In order to help make room in my limited space house, I learned how to fix arcade games (that I would get for free) and sell them on e-bay.
• I learned about home theater components and the wiring, designing, electronic needs to understand my husbands job better.
• I trained him to bring home copies of alll reciepts so I could track, sort, and send info to all the manufacturers to benefit from the incentive programs they offer.
• I went to tax school to learn how to save money on my taxes and to help others prepare theirs for free.
• I started to draw, sketch, paint, and sculpt but this has to be done in miniscule steps to avoid scaring the truly artistic. I may not be good at it, but it sure is fun and messy.
• I have a humor hanger where we write and share funny things we encounter, see, find or hear.
• One of my favorites is my Rosie Project. I force myself to find something good in every situation. My colleagues have tried to pierce the rose-colored-glasses view of all things educational, but to no avail. I started it to help my own negativity, but it's almost become a challenge from others. they'll come up to me and tell something bizaare and I'd find some small nugget of possible goodness that could happen. I still fall off the wagon sometimes, but it does wonders for the readjustment. I almost chose this as my creative project. especially when I saw the great, "Seriously Stop" idea. But I figured it needs to be something new, not just unperfected.

As promised, I have shortened the list to things I feel strongly about. Rosie was one finalist. Another was this Calvin & Hobbes project I started. I got approval from the publisher and 'handler' for Bill Waterson who approved a mock-up of my use of different C &H cartoons as the 'grabber' feature for a middle school curriculum guide. I haven't finished it, but I also thought this wasn't a new idea. I thought about a video documentary of life in the trenches of teaching. You know, kind of survivor-style with how many hours it really takes, how much no one tells you, how much of the materials you need to purchase yourself so kids can be productive, how much accounting, paperwork, legal disclaimer and expertise is required to seem credible. The monumental amount of counseling required to get the children to a place where they can be ready to receive information. I didn't choose this option because of the potential to jeopardize my Rosie project. (smile)

I will tell you what I did choose....tomorrow.

Beginnings

Okay, I'm not real sure what to do at this point. I have always meandered my way through my obligations and whenever I reached a point where I was confronted with something I didn't know, but it interested me, I learned about it. I am creative by nature and I am frequently engaged in a new "hobby" or experiment, just to figure out what it does, how it works, or how it can help me reach students in my classes.
I have to admit, the mere thought of organizing and planning to be creative is proving difficult to digest. I suppose it is another way to work us out of our comfort zone into getting more productive evidence or proof of creativity will make us better grad students?!? Maybe? I have several projects I have begun but haven't had the time to complete, but I don't think that is the goal here. I sense newness is a necessity or at least such time that it is a memory, not a periodic thought. I will give it some more thought and post tomorrow a short list of things I have begun since this course started and hopefully determine a final choice in the next day or so. Tomorrow I will post the shortlist and pros and cons as I see them. Feel free to comment at will, as I welcome all thoughts to add to the substance of the debate.
Thanks.