Hello, everyone! First off, I would like to give my thanks to KVEC and funding these grants for our classrooms for so many years. It is through these grants that I have had the ability to move my classroom forward in so many ways I would have otherwise had zero means to do so. This year I was blessed to receive 3 grants.
1.) The Classrooms A Stage:
This grant will allow me to have stage set up inside of my classroom when I will have the attention of all my students. Teaching is acting. If you teach, you are acting. Like acting, your best performance will stem from tapping into your true emotions and connecting with your audience on an authentic level. But you are still crafting an act using speech, movement, and props — and laying it before a critical audience. Your highest hope isn’t that your students will approve, necessarily, but that they’ll be moved, or somehow changed intellectually and emotionally. I am very anxious to get this started!

2.) Movement and Music in Math:
I keep trying to figure out ways to help my struggling students better apply to mathematical concepts. -Have you ever studied the benefits of moving while learning? Studies suggest that after 3 minutes of sitting in one place, your mind starts to wonder off and it becomes to harder to focus. 3 minutes! Let that sink in just for a minute. How many times do we subject our students to 3 minutes of sitting? That is every single day in my classroom. After witnessing Ron Clark using movements from dancing, music, and lights as a rewards and learning system, I am completely convinced that this is the way we should be getting our students engaged and involved in our lessons to retain what they need throughout their educational journey. No more dumping the info after they take their tests. This will help them retain content by applying songs and dance to the math lessons each day.

3.) Green with Innovation Part 2:
This year, I want to expand on what we started last year. I would like to transform our outdoor classroom into an outdoor garden due to our very limited means of space on the hill. With this I will need a tiller to work the ground, and a high tunnel to protect the plants, as well as other tools needed to take care of our crops. This would be a tremendous help to us and furthering our Agriculture program at JCS.

I am looking very forward to seeing everyones grants and presentations at this years Fire Summit. God Bless y’all!