Fall 2009 Grant Awards

1. Carving Careers. Anthony Abrams (ZWMS; $2,627.50)  Purchase of a Craftsman CNC for use in the Industrial Technology course and to help establish an engineering club.  Club members will be involved with a mock company, designing and producing products for consumers. The mill will generate products for other clubs to use for fundraising.
2.  iCan with an iPod. Jill McCune (PVE; $916)  The iPods will allow special education students to learn how to email, blog, research on the Internet, listen to music or view pictures as a way to calm themselves down, use pictures on the iPod as visual cues to remind them how to appropriately act in social situations, and use pictures to express themselves.
3.  Beautiful Books for 4^th Grade Authors. Deborah R. Milam (Stonegate; $920)  Utilizing artists, Bonnie Maurer and Bonnie Stahlecker from Young Audiences of Indiana, the 4^th grade will compose poems, construct a book, and publish poems in his/her book.
4.  Stained Glass Masterpiece. Sarah Daniels (Stonegate; $2, 828)  Local artist, Rita Wrighton, will work with 120 students to create a stained glass window while educating them on the art of stained glass.  The completed windows will be installed surrounding the doorway of the Stonegate Library.
5.  Seeing Through New Eyes, Flip Video in the Science Classroom. Stephanie Compton (PVE; $3,449.30)  The purchase of fifteen flip videos will allow all science/technology students at PVE to take data through video and pictures.  The cameras will also give the students a new tool in presenting information and sharing their thinking. 
6.  “If Goldilocks Can, Then Why Can’t We?” Amanda Livengood (Stonegate; $549)  A first grade classroom purchase of nonfiction leveled books classroom library, as well as a leveled library mobile storage cart and additional fiction leveled readers.
7.  Building Literacy Immersion. Amber Witherbee and Kim Riley. (Stonegate; $1,300)  This project will allow a more literacy-rich environment by providing more non-fiction literature, resource materials, audio books, comfortable seating, and magazines in an organized way that invites students to become involved in their own literacy development.
8.  Reading is Fun. Vicki Watson (Stonegate; $568.52)  Purchase of popular books needed to update this classroom’s current library.  The special education students and other students who are not reading at grade level will use these books in hopes of facilitating improvement in their reading skills.
9. Increasing Non-Fiction Literacy in the Classroom. Deb Brooks (Eagle; $642.05)  Enhance classroom library by purchasing non-fiction reading materials, including biographies, autobiographies, reference, and informational books.
10.  Math in the Garden. Natalie Hines (PVE; $603.08) Fourth grade students who struggle with math will learn the academic and practical skills needed to create their own garden.  They will be active in the process of planning, constructing and maintaining the garden with their math skills. 
11.  Stained Glass Artist in Residence. Scott Miller and Christine Squier (PVE; $2,225)  Artist, Rita Wrighton, will work with students to create mosaic patterns that will be transferred to concrete stepping stones and large stained glass windows.
12. “One Book….” Two Schools…Three Cups of Tea:  Uniting A Community Through Reading. Carrie Sanders and Sarah Seligman (ZWMS and ZMS; $7,670)  The media centers of both schools will purchase classroom sets of The Young Reader’s Edition of “Three Cups of Tea”,  an inspirational true story about Greg Mortenson’s decision to help impoverished children learn to read and write, forever changing their lives, his own, and countless others in the world who have been moved by his work.  The students and staff at both schools will read and discuss the book, engaging in cross-curricular activities that will bring the events and lessons they read into their everyday lives here in Zionsville.
13. Living in Colonial Times Through Literature. Jane Green (ZWMS; $920)  This grant will fund novels that will complement the 5^th grade social studies program.  While studying colonization of the United States, they will use leveled novels and link the fictional accounts with the facts which they will be studying in their textbooks.
14. Mimio Pad Magic. Melissa Stringham (ZWMS; $1745)  The Mimio Pad is a piece of technology that works in collaboration with the current Mimio software.  With this new technology, the teacher of students can write on the white board from anywhere in the room.  This will allow the teacher to walk around the classroom while demonstrating new skills to help give more individualized attention to struggling students.
15. SHARBADE. Holly Hook (ZWMS; $1.430)  This grant requests equipment needed to play SHARBADE, a fast paced, team sport.  This will help develop students’ physically and socially.  It will help develop muscular strength and endurance which are two components of fitness.
16. Chinese Program:  Together We Will Get Higher Achievement. Wendy Yuan (ZCHS, ZMS, ZWMS; $695)  This grant will be used to fund guest speakers, purchase classroom dictionaries, Chinese club art crafts, holiday celebration decorations, Asian shuttlecocks, and some Chinese games and moon cake mold from Chinatown.
17. Hoosier Knowledge Cart. Amber Witherbee (Stonegate; $1,210)  This grant will purchase materials for the 4^th grade class to be able to access information about famous Hoosiers, including books, maps, pamphlets, newspapers, and articles.
18. Probing Our Physical World. Andy Seward (ZMS; $2,932)  This project will allow science students to use Passport probes and sensors to measure and collect their own authentic data.  They will analyze their data, make inferences, draw conclusions and better understand physical laws of the universe.  
19. Listen Up! Deb Krupowicz (PVE; $3,750) Listen Up! will provide equipment that will allow children to listen to a variety of materials being read, to write their own books, to create audio to accompany their books, and to simultaneously practice their own reading aloud and their speaking skills while recording teacher-selected read-aloud selections for younger students and their peers.
20. Get Up and Move It! Kathleen Swayze (ZMS; $304) This grant will fund workshops taught by Laurie Cutsinger, a Young Audiences dance teacher, to the General Music classes and the Life Skills students. Through listening and observing, all students will be able to demonstrate a form of dance, and they will experience and learn about a type of music that may not be familiar with.  

TOTAL OF 20 GRANTS AWARDED FOR $37,284.45 (4 of the above reflect partial funding.) 

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