Homewood City Schools Foundation awards teacher grants
This fall, Homewood’s elementary school students will be able to hold an entire drum kit on one finger.
The elementary music teachers — Hailey Pepper at Shades Cahaba, Anne Alford at Hall-Kent and Amy Law at Edgewood — were awarded a Homewood City Schools Foundation grant in March to purchase a new technology called Specdrums for all three of their classrooms.
This was one of 16 spring grants awarded by the Foundation, totaling $52,520. Members of the Foundation surprised their spring grant recipients in their classrooms on March 19.
“It truly is one of our favorite days of the year,” said Foundation Director Mary Scott Pearson. “Sometimes they’re jumping up and down, sometimes there’s tears. You just never know how they’re going to respond.”
Specdrums are rings that connect to an app and can be tapped on different colors to create keyboard, drum and animal noises. Pepper said the app can also be used to compose and record music. She learned about the Specdrums from other music teachers on social media and immediately saw how they would be a good fit.
“It will put the technology to compose in the kids’ hands, … even a kindergartener could do it,” Pepper said. “They can even create their own instruments by drawing and using different colors.”
The Foundation grant pays for 30 rings for each elementary school, as well as chargers, cases and other supplies. Pepper said the Specdrums are a fairly new technology and aren’t in many schools yet.
“We like to do whatever we can to hook the kids and make them more interested without diluting what music really is,” she said.
Alford said she’s looking forward to introducing her Hall-Kent students to the Specdrums in August. She has used drums, handheld instruments, recorders and guitars to actively involve kids in music, but she said the Specdrums will appeal to the kids from kindergarten to fifth grade by combining color, music and technology “all rolled into one.”
“I just think the kids are going to have a blast with it,” Alford said. “Music is a very active, it’s kind of a participatory subject, so that’s why I’m excited because this provides the opportunity for active participation.”
“I just think I will have the students’ attention 100 percent of the time,” Law agreed. “I can’t wait to see their enthusiasm.”
Law said the Specdrums wouldn’t have been attainable without a grant from the Foundation. “We wouldn’t have the budget without it.”
Pearson said that’s the type of project that the Foundation is looking for when it chooses grant recipients. The Foundation’s grant committee chooses applicants with “innovative” ideas that can be self-sustaining or funded through other means once it is initially established.
Pearson said the Specdrums are “something that they definitely would not have otherwise.”
Tech is also coming to Hall-Kent through technology specialist Becky Salls’ Students Coding with Students project. Salls said she has some coding activities in her classroom, but this new program will allow older students to take those skills and use them to teach younger grades.
“I know coding is something that all kids need,” Salls said.
The grant will pay for Salls to purchase about eight different coding and robotics activities. She will work with older students to learn to use these activities, and Salls said she is working with other teachers to set up small group activities by November for older students to meet and teach younger ones.
“I just think it needs to start at a very young age because this is going to become more commonplace in the schools,” Salls said. “I’m really looking forward to everyone learning something about coding and that logical thinking and problem solving.”
Another project funded this year is the RISE (Risk-taking Individuals Seeking Excellence) program at Hall-Kent. Kindergarten teacher Kornelia McDaniel started the program for underserved kids to prevent loss of academic progress over the summer.
“There are many times when students do not even open books [in summer],” McDaniel said. “Students can end up getting further and further behind their grade level.”
In summer 2017, RISE held its first summer camp for 20 students, which combined lessons in math, reading and other subjects as well as character education and field trips.
“Those students came every single day to that program,” McDaniel said, and it inspired her to keep the project going through the school year. McDaniel said she meets with those 20 students after school to continue tutoring and help them set and reach goals in their classes.
“I am not going to leave these students. I can’t just drop them after this,” she said.
McDaniel said the Foundation grant will help fund a six-week RISE summer camp at the end of the school year. She has also received a SAILS (Summer Adventures In Learning) grant and support from Trinity United Methodist Church to offset the summer camp’s cost, and she relies on volunteers from the community to help teach the kids.
Her goal is to expand the RISE summer and after school programs so it’s not limited in the number of kids it serves. “My long term goal for this program is to have it as an opportunity for all students. I feel like the skills that we’re going over, I feel like it’s beneficial for all students,” McDaniel said.
Spring grants from the Homewood City Schools Foundation
All Homewood City Schools
► NBCT Applicants Embrace Twenty-First Century Learning: This grant will help teachers pursuing National Board Certification, including access to a database of lessons and Swivl cameras to film lessons for analysis. Homewood currently has 42 National Board Certified teachers and 10 more pursuing certification.
All Elementary Schools
► Specdrums for the Music Classroom: These app-connected rings can be tapped on objects of different colors to create sounds. The app can also be used to record and compose.
► Art Kits and PRO Status: This will provide materials for specialty art activities such as styro printing, monoprinting, screenprinting, drawing, weaving and clay, as well as a subscription to Art Ed PRO for art teachers to access professional development and tutorials.
Edgewood Elementary
► Assistive Technology for Reading and Writing: This will provide a Smart Pen, which records audio while writing and can transcribe written text, and a C-Pen Reader, which can scan text and turn it into audio. The pens will be used by students and teachers in grades 3-5.
► Unlocking Comprehension: This grant will provide a new reading comprehension assessment, as well as resources to individualize help for struggling readers.
► Next Steps in Guided Reading Instruction: Kindergarten classrooms will be provided with Next Steps reading kits, so all teachers can use the same books to teach and evaluate reading skills.
Hall-Kent Elementary
► Students Coding with Students: Students in grades 3-5 will learn basic plugged and unplugged coding skills, which they will then use to teach K-2 students similar coding skills.
► Second Grade Scope and Sequence Project: The grant will provide a professional learning day for second grade teachers to create a math instruction calendar for the year.
► RISE (Risk-taking Individuals Striving for Excellence): RISE is a six-week summer program that provides academic intervention as well as fun activities.
Shades Cahaba Elementary
► Now “U See” It! Making Abstract Concepts Concrete: This provides U See integer blocks for visual learning of math skills.
► Summer Reading Grant: Struggling readers and English Language Learning (ELL) students will be given summer reading books, participate in a book swap and keep a journal about their reading.
► Learning with All of the Lobes: First graders will learn about phonics with multisensory tools, and students reading above grade level will be given literature for small group instruction.
► The Future Ready K-5 Classroom: A new interactive panel will be purchased for one second grade classroom to test and decide whether to replace the rest of the school’s interactive panels with a new model.
Homewood High School
► ACTFL - Where World Languages Collaborate: Teachers will be able to attend the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Conference.
► Colorado Education Initiative AP Summer Institute: This grant will enable teachers to attend the AP Summer Institute to learn best practices for AP classes.
► Student of the Sport: Coaches will be able to use heart rate monitors to create training plans for their athletes and help their students understand the physical side of their sport.