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Spring 2019 Grants

“Our two classes have benefitted immensely from the purchase of the 24 Chromebooks that were placed in our classroom. Through this purchase, our students have been able to be more engaged in 21st century learning skills, have had an added enrichment and remediation if needed, and will be able to collaborate with their peers on skills taught in class through different venues accessed by the Chromebooks. The ease and efficiency of the Chromebooks allow us to utilize them each and every day.”

Shea Smith and Taylor Alling     6th Grade Teachers, HMS

Congratulations to our Spring 2019 Grant Recipients!

Edgewood Elementary

 Learn.Play.Osmo 

This grant will provide OSMO kits for each first grade classroom.  The OSMO kits allow students to learn through play and exploration.  They will be used in educational centers and small groups to enhance math, reading, language arts and technology instruction.

OG is a GO 

Orton-Gillingham is a research-based strategy that involes utilizing multisensory strategies to help students process language.  By simultaneously employing auditory, visual and kinesthetic interaction with language, students learn and retain the words and concepts at a much greater degree.  This grant will allow three teachers to attend the Comprehensive Training and four teachers to attend the Intermediate Level Training.

Out of This World – Lunar Buggy Engineering Design Challenge 

This grant will allow fifth grade students to participate in an innovative project to design a Lunar Buggy, similar to the one used on Apollo 15, to transport two astronauts and their payload across the surface of the moon.  They must also create a landing pod to safely land the buggy on Mars.  Students will work in teams to engineer and design the buggy and landing pod and will ultimately be allowed to test their creations.  The grant provides reusable materials so that this can become an annual project.

Building Bridges to Meaningful Play: Full STEAM Ahead

 This grant will provide hands on building materials to allow for purposeful play which incorporates STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) lessons. Students will be able to utilize observations of the real-life construction occurring at the school to make them part of a meaningful learning process.  Through this grant, kindergarten students will be able to design and construct structures using STEAM materials in creative and complex ways while capitalizing on the high interest setting of a construction site right outside of classroom windows!

Team Up for English

TEAM toolkits are designed to help English Learners to achieve academic language mastery in speaking, listening, reading and writing.  The toolkits include structured activities that correlate to learning standards.  This grant will provide toolkits for use across all six grade levels.

Hall Kent Elementary

 ISME Orton-Gillingham Comprehensive Training for Kindergarten

Orton-Gillingham is a research-based strategy that involes utilizing multisensory strategies to help students process language.  By simultaneously employing auditory, visual and kinesthetic interaction with language, students learn and retain the words and concepts at a much greater degree.  This grant will allow all kindergarten teachers at Hall-Kent to attend the ISME Orton-Gillingham Comprehensive Training.

Outdoor Classroom

Outdoor learning environments encourage healthy behaviors and help create a sense of responsibility for the environment.  This project seeks to create an outdoor classroom at Hall-Kent to cultivate student curiosity, exploration, and provide hands-on learning opportunities.  The outdoor classroom will be available for teachers to use for curriculum enhancement and experiential learning.  The space will be maintained by Hall-Kent’s Helper’s Program and the 5thgrade class.  The grant covers the cost of materials; labor will be supplied by volunteers.

Shades Cahaba Elementary

 Summer Reading Grant

This grant will provide selected Reading Intervention and EL students with a variety of non-fiction and fiction books to read over the summer.  Students will have multiple opportunities to meet with each other and teachers over the summer to discuss and reflect on their summer reading.  This program is intended to help prevent summer reading regression and encourage students to see themselves in the role of “readers” by providing a personal library of books.

Homewood Middle School

 Using IXL in 8th-grade Math and English to Meet Each Student’s Unique Needs

IXL is an online learning tool that provides students the opportunity to practice skills in an online environment. The program will be used to provide targeted practice for students who are performing below grade level.  It will also be used to support those students who are ready for more challenging material.  IXL lessons are tied to our Alabama state standards and allow teachers and administrators to monitor students progress in real time.  This grant will provide IXL site licenses for use by 8thgrade Math, English, Special Education and EL instructors.

Exploring History Through Graphic Novels

Graphic novels provide vividly illustrated texts that teach inference skills, dialogue, transitions and drawing conclusions.  Graphic novels have been shown to be especially helpful to struggling readers.  This grant will provide a classroom set of five different graphic novels covering historical content which can be used by all 6thgrade history teachers.  This grant seeks to help students connect with History content in fun and exciting ways while also incorporating language arts skills.

Virtual Book Club

A virtual book club was started at HMS in the fall of 2018 to promote literacy among HMS students though a digital platform to allow an opportunity for any HMS student to participate, despite their other extracurricular activities.  This grant will provide books for the book club to use for the remainder of this school year and all of next school year.  Books will be stored in the library and will be available for classroom teachers to use when not in use by the book club.  By providing books this grant will allow students to participate in the club at no cost, ensuring that all students have an equal opportunity to participate.

Homewood High School

 Updated Technology for the New Chemistry and Physics Labs

Although the renovation of the chemistry lab and physics will include many essentials such as safety equipment, new tables and cabinetry, it will not include any of the digital tools necessary to enhance the STEM curriculum.  Probeware is a lab based learning tool that connects probes and sensors to a computer to allow students to view real-time data in a variety of formats.  Probeware is utilized to develop science literacy and give students hands-on tools to allow them to think like scientists.   Chemistry probeware will be used to monitor temperature, conductivity, gas pressure, voltage and other scientific measurements.  Physics probeware will be used to detect direct motion, magnetic field, sound and other physical phenomena.  This grant will ensure that HHS students laboratory experiences are as up to date as their new lab facilities!

Biology Lab Equipment

This grant will provide beakers and flasks for biology classrooms to allow students to participate in lab investigations.  By providing hands on learning opportunities this grant will foster deeper understanding in biology students.

Multiple Schools –Homewood Middle School & Homewood High School

Empowering English Language Learners for Academic Success

This grant will pilot a program providing an Interactive eBook for English Language Learners.  Finish Line for ELLs 2.0will allow students to practice the four language domains (listening, speaking, reading and writing) and to have frequent performance feedback.  The format of the program is similar to the format used for the annual English proficiency test and will therefore help students become more familiar with the test while allowing teachers to access more frequent progress reports.