Thank You!

It’s impossible for me to do what I do in the classroom each day without the support and generosity of my community. Often these are people who have never met my students but know what a quality education and ample opportunities can do to the trajectory of a student’s life.
Last year was one of the most successful school years I have ever been a part of. Thanks to the donations of people like: The Nascar Foundation, The Olathe Public Schools Foundation, Randy and Roxanne Bragaw, Gene and Darlene Bergquist, Sandy Wheeler, Amber Rowland, and many others, I saw students lives changed. Here are some of the projects that have changed students’ lives this year:

1. We developed a Maker Space. Kids spent hours every day tinkering with MakeyMakey boards, circuits, and Little Bits kits. During homeroom they created everything from a Mr. Stock operation game (where they took turns attempting to “save me”, but I think I died more than was necessary) to pianos and drums made out of anything you can think of (including bananas and buckets of water).

2. Using the supplies from the Maker Space the kids also took the hardware and learned how to code using Scratch. Instead of creating PowerPoints, kids were writing their own computer programs to present facts about World War II.

3. The MakeyMakey boards were such a huge hit that my wife took them to her elementary school next door and had her students learning about circuits.

4. Thanks to boxes and boxes of book donations we gave away 700+ books at parent teacher conferences in February. The look on the kids’ faces when they walked out of the building with their arms overflowing with books was priceless.

5. At the end of the year we were able to give away 40 books to kids who might not be able to afford their own brand new book. Some of these kids have never had the joy of being the first person to crack open a book. Plus, we had enough books leftover to jump start our book giveaway this year!

Thank you for your continual support!