Our most recent One Class At A Time grant will help Mountain View Elementary School students with their reading. Sixth-grade teacher Ashley Moore will use her grant to purchase copies of visual dictionaries.
She says the new materials will help students learn higher-level vocabulary and retain those words.
Moore says students who read 20 minutes average over a million more words read per school year.
Earlier this month, MTN News returned to MeadowLark Elementary School to see how One Class At a Time was helping its 4th-grade students.
Teacher Katharine Howard purchased new atlases for the students, who used them in a scavenger hunt around the globe.
Howard says the old atlases were close to 18 years old and students were in need of updated materials.
“The atlases were very well loved and we were in need of some new ones,” said Howard.
“My pages were falling out it was just, disgusting,” said Hanson.
Now that the class has the right tools to succeed, Howard says the students are excelling and having a blast while learning.
“We don’t wanna stop playing with them ‘cause there’s like so many facts about things,” said Hanson.
The atlases teach world geography through maps along with fun facts that keep students turning pages.
“It’s easy for them to understand and lots of good pictures and stuff about different continents,” said Howard.
Students are now even dreaming of where they’d like to eventually explore.
“I really want to go to either India to see all the elephants and stuff, or China to go to Beijing,” said Hanson.
Howard says the new atlases will also help students with Montana history and builds a solid foundation for learning more geography in the 5th and 6th grades.
“Them being able to have a hands-on way to see where all of these different aspects of Montana history and North American history is pretty important. We use Chromebooks a lot, but I think it’s also important that they still can use an atlas,” said Howard.
To learn more about our One Class At A Time partnership with First Interstate Bank, click here.
