The Zionsville Education Foundation awarded $20,038.55 in grants to Zionsville Community School teachers on Oct. 11.
According to the organization, the ZEF prize patrol, consisting of ZEF board members, community Grants Committee members and ZEF staff visited classrooms to surprise teachers with the funding for their grant applications.
ZEF classroom grants are awarded twice a year in the fall and spring. Classroom grants combine with other types of ZEF grants to provide funding to ZCS teachers, students and schools. Classroom and Imagine Professional Development Grant applications are reviewed by a combination of ZEF Board members and community members.
The fall classroom grants included:
Boone Meadow Elementary: Empowering Minds Through Math Strategy Games
Students will learn to play a variety of math strategy games that reinforce computational fluency, number sense and critical thinking while having fun and being challenged.
Zionsville Middle School: Robots for Coding
Provides funding for eight robots to introduce students to basic programming and lead them to more advanced coding. Sixth grade students will work in groups to write code that will cause the robots to perform maneuvers and complete specific tasks.
Trailside Elementary: Trailside Outdoor Classroom and Garden
This grant creates a garden on the school premises that will serve as an outdoor classroom. The garden will be designed to align with the first and second grade Indiana Science and Social Studies Standards, providing students with an opportunity to explore various topics while actively participating in garden-related activities.
Boone Meadow Elementary and Union Elementary: Happy Handwriting Helpers
Enables the purchase of materials that will add an effective layer of developmentally appropriate writing tools to support student writers.
Zionsville West Middle School: A World of Books
This media center/ENL joint project provides funding for whole class novels, literature circle books and popular books for ENL students written in their language and at a reading level that will make the experience possible and enjoyable for students.
Trailside Elementary: Following and Documenting the Weather
A school-based weather station will enable students to learn how to gather weather data and explore what role each tool plays in making weather predictions. This daily observation and weather station reading will give kindergarten through fourth graders real life experiences with weather data.
Zionsville West Middle School: SoundBites: Amplifying Young Voices in the Digital Age
This project equips students with state-of-the-art podcast equipment and skills, nurturing their communication, creativity and critical thinking abilities, while preparing them as informed, tech-savvy citizens ready to make their voices resonate in the digital age.
Zionsville Middle School: 100 Years of Animation: Flip Book to Stop Motion
Provides tools to help students discover the world of animation, spanning from 1923-2023, and be immersed in the creation of flip books and stop motion animation.
Trailside Elementary: Portable Disc Golf
Enables the purchase of disc golf equipment to use the game as a means of teaching a variety of gross motor skills within elementary wellness classes and providing all students with experience in an activity they can engage in throughout their lives.
