McDonald's of SouthHays

Awards for the 2011-2012 School Year

Native American Artifact Library will require students to be involved with expository, narrative, and technical readings, the art of each culture, map and geography skills, science concepts of adaptation and using but not destroying, writing skills, simple food preparation and more. This project will help students separate the characteristics of American Indians from the various regions.  Students will make a physical map to show the features of the lands the people inhabited as well as the areas of the country they utilized.  They will also construct a model of a common dwelling type.

In today's busy world, many families are unable to enjoy quality time together as a family during their evening meal.  From Table Top Time experiences, children will learn appropriate table manners, have the opportunity to practice appropriate meal time conversation and interact with others in a social setting.  Many cross-curricular relationships will develop as students plan and experience this program.

 Let's Move will help children learn how important it is to keep their bodies healthy and their minds stimulated.  Physical activity experiences will be uniquely integrated at home and school, so students learn that movement can be fun no matter where they are.  Purposeful movement develops the brain, nervous system and muscles of growing children.  These activities will create a movement-making community that supports a child's language, cognitive, emotional, social and physical development. 

Children with cognitive and/or communication delays learn more through play and hands-on experiences.  Language Expression Through Play involves a play carpet with roads, land, water, vehicle sets and other items for students to create a village.  Reception language, spatial concepts, item sequencing, expressive language and social skills will be enhanced through this program.

Learning Through Play:  The Physical World will provide a healthy balance of play and academic learning.  It will provide students the opportunity to practice language skills, turn taking, cooperation, sharing, reasoning, problem solving and negotiation.  This project will utilize a sand/water table, number fish set, sift/find number shells and other items to provide a learning environment responsive to student developmental needs.

Teaching Dictionary Skills will provide students with an ability they will use throughout their lives.  These new dictionaries contain features that will make it easier for young readers to utilize these reference materials.  New features include increased frequency of photographs/ illustrations that are paired with entry words along with color coded guide/entry words. 

Students will be able to view specimens and learn to properly use microscopes with Microorganisms and Microscopes.  Activities will enable students to identify parts of a microscope, understand the reversal of images viewed through a microscope, be aware of image depth and details when viewed through a microscope, and identify images of common protists when viewed through a microscope.

Math to Go will give students the opportunity to learn counting, odd/even numbers, addition, subtraction, algebra concepts, geometric shapes, counting money and understanding place values.  Classroom parent volunteers will help students better understand math objectives through these handy tool kits.   Students will have opportunities to take materials home to help build an understanding and mastery of objectives.

Literacy Center will emphasize fluency and listening as students record themselves reading and then listen to their own readings.  A docking station, recording/listening device and headphones will enhance group listening activities as students work together in small groups.  Students learn to self-correct, read with emotion, and increase their speed when they hear stories being read and are able to hear themselves read.  All of these skills promote fluency.

Math manipulatives to help students gain a better understanding of different concepts such as clocks, money, addition, subtraction and patterning through a hands-on, manipulative learning approach will be provided through Learn at Home Bags.  Students will not only use these manipulatives in their classroom to help foster a hands-on discovery approach, but they will have the opportunity to take the bags home to practice these skills with their parents.  The children will become more familiar with the skills and master them while spending quality time with their parents.

Tag Reading System is a touch and talk reading device that brings stories to life through interactive text and learning activities.  The system helps students identify letter sounds and understand how the sounds form words.  It will allow the teacher to differentiate instructions for students, engage them in appropriate leveled reading and motivate them to become independent readers.  This system engages each student in hands-on, multi-sensory reading practice that will build their fluency skills and their confidence as readers.

This program will allow students to optimize use of interactive learning through SMART Board activities for all subject areas.  Many educational websites for instructional purposes can be viewed and whole-class educational games can be used to review concepts.  This project will increase the use of hands-on learning through technology in the classroom by using SMART daily.  There are many websites and daily activities such as DVD books, online reading activities and many other free online resources that can be utilized.

DEAL:  Discover, Explore and Learn is a home and school connected learning experience that involves students actively in various science center experiments to target listening, speaking, spelling, reading and writing skills.  The purpose of these centers is to actively involve students in observing and comparing, matching and classifying, identifying and labeling, ordering and sequencing and following directions.  These centers include:  My Body, Life Cycles, Nutrition, Five Senses, Plants, Weather & Seasons, Magnets and Color Mixing.

The school district's "Famous Figures" program encompasses a variety of learning objectives such as reading, research, writing and speaking skills.  All fifth grade students are required to select a famous person to research.  Based on research of this person's life, students write a report then present it in the first person.  A variety of Famous Figure Biographies will be a part of the regular library collection to enhance the selection of famous people for research purposes.  This new biography collection can be accessed throughout the year by all students.