The goal of this project is to motivate all of my third grade Cambridge students to read all 15 Florida Sunshine State Young Readers during the 2017-2018 school year. This will be the first year implementing the Cambridge program at the elementary level, and I want to give my students the opportunity to set a challenging and exciting goal for themselves during this first experience in the Cambridge setting.

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A "Charm"ing Classroom Filled with Sunshine!

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School:
Laurel Oak Elementary 
Subject:
Language Arts 
Teacher:
Sheila Blaisdell 
Students Impacted:
20 
Grade:
Date:
July 13, 2017

Investor

Thank you to the following investor for funding this grant.

 

Perna-Rose Foundation for Hope - $247.09

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Impact to My Classroom

# of Students Impacted: 22

This project has been a major success!!  My goal was to give students the motivation and encouragement to read all fifteen Florida Sunshine State Young Readers.  This is usually accomplished only by about 4-5 students in a class each year, but with the addition of the Cambridge program, I wanted to encourage all students to meet this goal.  Thanks to the books and charms I was able to purchase with grant funds, at this time 18 students have read all of the books and the four students remaining are on their final book, on their way to completion by the deadline of May 14th!  The set of books I was able to purchase with grant funds enabled me to make sure students always had a book available to read while the charms provided the incentive and excitement to finish and move on to the next book.  I used Twitter as a platform for celebrating success as each student finished the books and earned all of their charms so our parents and community members were able to share in our joy and success along the way.  We were able to connect with authors through Facebook Live events and are scheduling a private classroom Skype with one of the authors who started following our progress on Twitter!  This project also carried over into success with ELA learning goals as students had to pass a comprehension test on each book in order to earn their charm.  The continued reading of challenging texts has given them the practice needed to prepare for FSA testing including a chance to build stamina for reading longer passages.  I am so grateful for this grant and the impact it had on my class this year!

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As each student finished the Sunshine State Reader

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Another student after he had finished all of the b

 

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We were able to chat online with multiple authors

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I was able to purchase three sequels of Sunshine S

 

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Thanks to the excitement over reading the Sunshine

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We sent thank you cards to the Perna-Rose Foundati

 

Original Grant Overview

Goal

The goal of this project is to motivate all of my third grade Cambridge students to read all 15 Florida Sunshine State Young Readers during the 2017-2018 school year. This will be the first year implementing the Cambridge program at the elementary level, and I want to give my students the opportunity to set a challenging and exciting goal for themselves during this first experience in the Cambridge setting.  

 

What will be done with my students

Students will be encouraged and challenged to read all 15 of the SSYRA books while earning a special book charm for each book completed. In order to officially complete a book, they will need to pass a Reading Counts test (comprehension quiz) for that book. When this is done, they will receive a charm that has a special meaning related to the story to be put on a charm necklace. For example, the book “Pugs of the Frozen North” will have a paw print book charm to represent the dog characters. Throughout the year, they will be encouraged to continue reading the books and earning charms while receiving special recognition for each charm received with a special chart in the room that will track their progress as well as regular Twitter posts that will celebrate their charm earnings. They will also receive a special charm for completion of all of the books called the Shining Example charm (in the shape of the Sun to represent the Sunshine State books).  

 

Benefits to my students

Students in third grade are exposed to very rigorous standards and testing for the first time since they have been in elementary school, and giving them the challenge to read as much as possible, in particular with good quality literature, will give them more practice and experience with the higher level reading they will be expected to do on the FSA assessment. Also, the fun aspect of the charms will motivate all readers, whether they already love to read or are hesitant to pick up a more challenging book. The charms will have the additional benefit of giving students the opportunity to share with their families and our school community their continued success as the year goes on when they are wearing their charm necklaces for all to see. And finally, an added bonus to completing all 15 of the books is that they will be invited on a special field trip with our media specialist at the end of the school year!  

 

Budget Narrative

Books priced for grant with teacher discount through Barnes and Noble.  

 

Items

# Item Cost
1 One copy of all 15 Florida SSYRA books $110.11
2 World record charms $6.49
3 Pencil charms $5.49
4 Outstanding achievement charms $6.49
5 Artist palette charms $5.49
6 Baseball cap charms $5.49
7 Paw print charms $5.49
8 Superstar charms $5.49
9 Glow worm charms $5.49
10 Bully bull charms $5.49
11 Dollar sign charms $5.49
12 Basketball charms $6.49
13 Tree charms $7.95
14 Rocket charms $5.49
15 Snowflake charms $7.95
16 Key charms $5.49
17 Awesome charms $5.49
18 Shining example charms $5.49
19 Necklace chains $14.95
20 Shipping/tax $20.78
  Total: $247.09

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