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Grant provides books, other resources to Edmonds School District

Published 1:30 am Thursday, November 10, 2016

By Sharon Salyer

Want to see something REALLY SCARY? Leave it to kindergarten classmate Keelan Clark to find something scary in the book “Is This a Monster?” on Thursday and show it to Hayley Whitaker while reading newly acquired books in Lisa Brizendine’s kindergarten class at Beverly Elementary School. Evelyn Holdt reads at left. The books are part of “A reading library for kindergarteners,” and include both fiction and nonfiction, Principal Danielle Sanders says. (Dan Bates / The Herald)
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Want to see something REALLY SCARY? Leave it to kindergarten classmate Keelan Clark to find something scary in the book “Is This a Monster?” on Thursday and show it to Hayley Whitaker while reading newly acquired books in Lisa Brizendine’s kindergarten class at Beverly Elementary School. Evelyn Holdt reads at left. The books are part of “A reading library for kindergarteners,” and include both fiction and nonfiction, Principal Danielle Sanders says. (Dan Bates / The Herald)

Want to see something REALLY SCARY? Leave it to kindergarten classmate Keelan Clark to find something scary in the book “Is This a Monster?” on Thursday and show it to Hayley Whitaker while reading newly acquired books in Lisa Brizendine’s kindergarten class at Beverly Elementary School. Evelyn Holdt reads at left. The books are part of “A reading library for kindergarteners,” and include both fiction and nonfiction, Principal Danielle Sanders says. (Dan Bates / The Herald)
Dan Bates / The Herald Want to see something REALLY SCARY? Leave it to kindergarten classmate Keelan Clark to find something scary in the book “Is This a Monster?” on Thursday and show it to Hayley Whitaker while reading newly acquired books in Lisa Brizendine’s kindergarten class at Beverly Elementary School. Evelyn Holdt reads at left. The books are part of “A reading library for kindergarteners,” and include both fiction and nonfiction, Principal Danielle Sanders says.
Mercy Mathews (bottom) and Lily Holt get comfortable and start reading the new books. (Dan Bates / The Herald)
Kindergarteners (from left) Asher Wheatley, Quentin Cook, Iokua Baker, Elijah Stewart and Cai Williams-Smith dive right into the new books. The books are part of a $35,000 gift of supplies from Inspirus Credit Union to the Edmonds School District. (Dan Bates / The Herald)
Third-graders Legacy Marshall (left) and Peyton Whitaker in Wynne Webster’s class at Beverly Elementary School in Lynnwood test an educational marble tower they constructed while other students get started on similar tasks. (Dan Bates / The Herald)

EDMONDS — Wynne Webster knows how to get the attention of her third-graders.

Sure you could do fraction drills on a white board, but why not try something a little more innovative?

It’s called fraction pizza. It teaches math principles such as two 1/4s is the same as 1/2.

“If they have it in their hands, they can do it quicker than paper and pencil,” said Webster, a third-grade teacher at Beverly Elementary School. “We needed more fraction activities. They like pizza.”

The game was just one of the education resources recently sent to the Edmonds School District through a $35,000 grant from Inspirus Credit Union.

Teachers typically spend about $300 a year out of pocket to provide supplies for their classrooms, said Sherry Lotze, vice president of marketing for the credit union. She said she hopes the grants “help them support the kids in their classrooms.”

Requests for classroom supplies were made through an online funding site, donorschoose.org. About $10,000 in school supplies went to Beverly Elementary School. Overall, funding requests from 14 schools were approved.

The requests were wide-ranging, with projects such as as “girls who code” and “paint your way through kindergarten,” and “discovering math through art.”

Some requests were for as little as $124. The largest, for $3,342, was for the Girls Who Code project, an after-school club.

“Our librarian has an interest in getting girls into coding and science, technology, engineering and math,” said Danielle Sanders, Beverly Elementary School’s principal.

Some classes at the school do a little coding, she said. “This is an opportunity to extend a little beyond that.”

Kindergarten teacher Lisa Brizendine said she made a request on the donorschoose site for 15 sets of books. Each set is comprised of five books.

Titles include, “It looked Like Spilt Milk,” and “Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed.”

Students were so excited when they heard about the delivery of the books that they started to write thank you notes the next day, Brizendine said.

“They were here to witness the delivery of the books,” she said. “They were really excited about that.”

In addition to the resources the donations can make in the classroom, they also provide “a big morale boost,” Sanders said. “It’s made the teachers feel that spark of creativity again — what could I do if I had some funding?”

Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486; salyer@heraldnet.com.

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