jill, Author at Alameda Education Foundation

Ruby Bridges Kindergarten class whiteboard

First Year Kindergarten Teacher Gets Classroom Supplies

New Kindergarten teacher at Love Elementary School, Jana Lee, applied for funds to help set up her classroom as a first-year teacher. She wanted to purchase an easel to do whole-group activities at a level closer to students, and games, read-alouds, and more to supplement targeted intervention. For example, she wished to buy rhyming and other phonemic-based activities for small-group interventions. Ms. Lee needed help facilitating both whole-group instruction, so students can be engaged and are able to participate themselves,

A Color Printer to Build Community Around Art

Margarethe Olsson, Grades TK – 5 Art Teacher at Ruby Bridges Elementary, put in an application for an AEF Teacher Mini Grant to purchase a color printer, paper and inks to fund several projects in the art room. One project would be a community wall where all students could see themselves represented in the larger school community. Students would take photos, print them and embellish them with frames or backgrounds, so each photo represented the way students wanted to be seen.

Writing, Publishing and Sharing Children’s Books

Melissa Smiley, 8th grade teacher at Academy of Alameda (AOA), described a book project for 8th graders explore the psychology of learning and reading development, how lessons are taught through children’s stories, and the publishing process. The final project for this unit would be for students to write and create a children’s book with a specific grade level in mind that would share a specific message with the audience. When the books are completed, the 8th graders will participate in “Buddy Day” where they will visit elementary school classrooms and share their stories with the younger students.

2026 Zainab Wood Middle School microscopes

Microscopes Bring the World Closer

Wood Middle School grades 6 – 7 science teacher, Naveed Zainab, applied for a mini grant to purchase 5 microscopes for the class. Microscopy is an essential part of the 6th-grade science curriculum, and to ensure every student has hands-on experience, the school typically aims for two students per microscope.

Unfortunately, several microscopes were broken this school year, so up to four students had to share one microscope at times making it challenging for students to fully engage in the learning process.

Calming Corner to Help Students with Anxiety

Students frequently experience emotional challenges such as anxiety, frustration, and...

Studying Earthquakes with STEAM Kit

Courtney Yarbrough, a 2nd grade teacher at the Academy of Alameda, applied and was awarded a grant to purchase a DreamBox STEAM kit for her classroom to do various science experiments. She knew her class responded well to hands-on learning experiences, and she was eager to provide an opportunity to include some hands-on, NGSS aligned science exploration in class. These projects were above and beyond her regular science curriculum and would allow students to enrich their learning in a fun way.

Students Experience Shakespeare

Because of a grant from AEF (and the school’s Dads Club), all the students at Maya Lin Elementary were able to see a professional, age-appropriate production of Shakespeare’s play Julius Ceasar, performed by SF Shakes, a San Francisco-based theater company. Every Maya Lin student, regardless of their family’s ability to pay for theater tickets, had the opportunity to have a front-row seat at a world-class cultural experience!

SF Shakes goes to great efforts to encourage BIPOC,