These movement seat additions help students who struggle with remaining seated to work. Each Hokki stools allow students to move in multiple directions while remaining seated. The Wobble disks also allow students to use more of their core muscles to support students as they remain seated. Both of these items are a safe way for students to expel some extra energy and will help create a positive and calm classroom environment.
Classroom Set of iPod Touch Devices
A classroom set (12) of iPod touch devices, cases, 3 dock charging stations.
LBMS currently has 6 iPod touch devices that are shared by all staff members. Art (6th, 7th, and 8th) and Lights Camera Action (7th and 8th) check these out frequently for student use. In Art students document their art work, film during studio time, and take still photos. In Lights Camera Action, the students use the devices as their primary source to film and then edit footage on both the devices themselves (using specific editing applications) and their laptops.
The iPod Touch devices transfer film and photos seamlessly from one device to another and to the student laptops for further editing, analysis, and manipulation. The students are already very familiar with how to use the iPod Touch devices because they use them in the STEAM lab. They are lightweight, portable, and have dozens of applications that would enhance both art and film curriculum. Having a set for film and art to share would reach all fine arts students and free up the existing 6 iPod Touch devices for more teachers and students to use.
Author Visit with Aaron Reynolds
Aaron Reynolds is a prolific author and his presentations are memorable and never the same. He reaches students, his books stay with them, and the teachers rank him as one of the top author visits!
Author visits are vital ways in which children make the connection that books are written by real people. Not only can author visits influence children to seek out and read the books of the author who visited, but they can make kids look at all books in a different light. As such they are a vital tool to help promote literacy.
Virtual Reality Goggles Classroom Set
Student learning can now be enhanced by having the opportunity to visually experience locations not available to us in the traditional classroom setting. For example, when studying ancient civilizations in sixth grade, students will be able to visually "move" through the Colosseum. As part of the seventh grade study, students will actually travel through the Amazonian rain forest. In eighth grade, the students will visually experience the working conditions of a child laborer during industrialization.
Goggles in action...
The middle school says "Thank You!"
Vertical Ceramic Slab Roller
In hopes of building our ceramics program, the Alliance is bringing in a slab roller to help our students with their hand-building techniques. Most traditional slab rollers take up a lot of floor space, are very heavy and not portable. This new style of slab roller is vertical so it doesn't take up the learning space within the classroom and is also on wheels for easy storage.
This piece of ceramics equipment will benefit all art students in 6th-8th grade every trimester they are in art (approximately 150 students per trimester). Students love working with clay and it is a large part of our curriculum. This roller allows our students to build larger and more structurally sound hand built pieces of art in a much easier and faster way.
Suiting up the Practice Rooms
Students have rehearsal tracks to assist them in learning their vocal music. Our new equipment allows breakout opportunities from choir and musical rehearsals for more student directed learning. The portability of the speakers also allows choir and musical rehearsals to take place in various locations - on the stage, the drama room or the presentation stairs.
ION Audio Block Rocker Max Bluetooth Speakers
IPOD Touch
1 IPAD Pro for the choir room to control all of the new technology.
Hybrid Pianos - Tradition Meets Technology
The grant brought a Yamaha NU1 Piano Hybrid and dolly to LBMS. An issue with electronic pianos of the past was that they could not provide the authentic playing experience or sound of a real piano. Our new Hybrid piano has the same action and natural wood keys used in the best Yamaha pianos without the cost of tuning or upkeep. Additionally, our new hybrid piano has no maintenance costs, whereas currently, the district incurs a cost of $400-$600 per year to tune and maintain the choir room piano.
The Hybrid Piano fills the new choir with the appropriate amount of sound to support the singers in rehearsal. It also has the ability to transpose, provide additional keyboard sounds and MIDI record onto a flash drive at the touch of a button. The compact design allows for more student space when multiple grade ensembles are rehearsing.
Sounds of (no) Silence
The new choir room was in need of a sound system to play music for choral rehearsals and music listening. In addition, we wanted to expand the system to include recording capabilities for choral and general music students.
This grant provided a new sound and recording system which benefits student growth and learning by allowing their singing to be recorded with instant playback. With the assistance of this technology, students can now learn to identify and apply criteria such as correct vocal tone, vowel shapes, interpretation of the notation and technical accuracy to rehearse, refine, and determine when a piece is ready to perform.
This provides us with an opportunity for students to develop their critical listening, analyzing and evaluative skills.
Simulation Software for STEAM lab
We would like to purchase additional software for our STEAM lab to address the many different interests and application possibilities for our students. s
Students will leverage the simulation technology to create their own SMART learning goal that they will strive to achieve. They will have to use a variety of resources to construct knowledge on the engineering, physics, and design aspects of each program. Students will use the simulation software to design and create new, useful, or imaginative solutions to their SMART goals. Students will use the digital tools to broaden their perspectives and enrich their learning through real world applications (mechanics, construction, design, architecture, city planning).
Kindergarten Science Curriculum
This granted provided the funding to purchase books to support our Kindergarten Science Curriculum. In particular, we purchased books for the Weather & Climate unit and our unit on Forces and Actions.
These books will help our Kindergarten students better understand the world around them and will support literacy across the curriculum.
Mantra Lingua Learning Resources
Lake Bluff School District 65 made a commitment to rigorously implement a World Language program beginning in Kindergarten and moving through 8th grade. In a rigorous implementation, there are four domains of teaching and learning that must be present:
Reading
Writing
Listening
Speaking
When all of these components are present in language learning programs, student growth is evident. This grant includes two items to support these goals: The Mantra Lingua PENPals and the LinguaTALK Spanish toolkit.
Mantra Lingua PENPals
Our new Mantra Lingua PENpals are digital readers that are programmable with a recording feature which lets you customize material to align with curricular learning tasks. The technology of the reader allows you to record information using an electronic sensor label. The sticker is coded with your recorded information so that when a student touches the pen to the label, the recorded content is played. Labels can be used in books, posters, or on objects in the environment. The recording feature on the PENpal allows the user to record specific content intended or could be used to record in-lesson information. Recordings can be played back to a listener or the recorder. The PENpal Class Kits comes with recordable labels, charging cables, batteries, and free software access to over 900 dual language audio files.
These devices benefit our students and learning in a number of ways. First, they provide the opportunity to make any book available in Spanish, as instructional support to the curriculum. PENpals give our teachers the opportunity to translate any book, regardless of the language in which it is written. With respect to curricular goals, this supports reading and listening. Second, with the recording feature, students have the ability to record responses and play them back. This meets three learning components of the outlined curriculum (speaking, listening, and presentational). Lastly, PENpals support both interpretive and interpersonal tasks when they are used for different activities like scavenger hunts or interactive group/pair work.
LinguaTALK Spanish toolkit
The resources in the toolkit promote the teaching and learning of Spanish. The Spanish Toolkit “comes with interactive activities to help students progress from word through phase to sentence levels.” This is one of the primary goals of our World Language program. We want students to learn the language in authentic and developmentally appropriate ways, use the language they are learning through natural yet intentionally planned learning activities, and to be able to demonstrate growth through programmatic performance-based assessments. The Spanish toolkit is equipped with audio books, PENpals loaded with LinguaTALK Spanish Audio (narrated by native Spanish speakers), Mini-book Creator Software, recordable stickers, picture bank of vocabulary and flashcards, thematic songs, 32 Charts, and a wide variety of teacher-based resources. Moreover, the book topics and charts are exactly aligned to the thematic curricular units of study, almost as if someone from Mantra Lingua was a part of the development of the thematic units. This spontaneous alignment of the LinguaTALK resources, alongside programmatic goals, provides an opportunity to capitalize on resources that will promote the Spanish language learning of our students and benefit their overall target language growth. Standards-wise, the LinguaTALK Spanish toolkit will align with reading, writing, listening, and speaking objectives in addition to supporting interpretive tasks, interpersonal tasks, and presentational tasks.
Portable Sound System
LBES was in need of a portable sound system powerful enough to use for outside events such as field day, wellness week, veteran’s day ceremonies, outside classroom presentations, and our K-2 music shows.
This grant included a powered amplifier/mixer and stand, two speakers and speaker stands, microphone, microphone cable and stand, heavy duty extension cord, cord storage reel and a rolling storage case.
New Kiln
The art department requested a new kiln that was larger than the others and electric. (The current kiln was very old, small, and has broken down a few times in the last two years). There were problems fitting all K-5 students clay projects in a tiny kiln (generally takes a whole semester to fire every students project 2 times).
Our new kiln makes the LB ceramics project much more doable for each student. Also the electric kiln provides greater safety, and protect students from broken/incorrectly fired clay projects.
Makerbot 3D printer
The affordable 3D Replicator features the ease of one-touch printing and has all the same technology as full-size MakerBot printers. Creating 3D models has never been easier with the MakerBot Replicator Mini Compact 3D Printer. It has all the same technology as the full-size, fifth-generation MakerBot printers and features one-touch printing—just send your file to print and press a button. It’s that simple. The Replicator Mini has a build volume of 4 x 4 x 5 inches (L x W x H), making it perfect for creating household items, replacement parts, and unique gifts.
Odyssey of the Mind
Odyssey of the Mind
The Odyssey of the Mind teaches students how to think divergently by providing open-ended problems that appeal to a wide range of interests. Students learn how to identify challenges and to think creatively to solve those problems. They are free to express their ideas and suggestions without fear of criticism. The creative problem-solving process rewards thinking “outside of the box.” While conventional thinking has an important place in a well-rounded education, students need to learn how to think creatively and productively. Learn more.