Three Idaho Teachers Win NWPE Grants

 

Three Idaho teachers have been awarded grants by the Northwest Professional Educators Association; an organization that seeks to support professional educators and advance the profession of teaching. These grants, in the amount of $250.00 each, will help teachers offset the cost of setting up a new classroom or program. Congratulations Ms. Morrison, Ms. Thompson, and Mr. Taylor!

Ms. Michelle Morrison, a kindergarten teacher at Idaho Arts Charter School in Nampa, ID, has been awarded a $250 New Classroom Start Up Grant from Northwest Professional Educators.  Ms. Morrison will use the funds to purchase materials to advance learning with the Scottish Storyline Method which builds on the principle that learning, to be meaningful, has to be memorable, and that by using learners’ enthusiasm for story-making, the classroom, the teacher’s role, and learning can be transformed.  Through the use of key questions, Storyline takes a topic and allows students to travel through a story as characters reacting to the incidents that are developed as the story unfolds. Read More

Ms. Stacey McFarland, Xavier Charter School teacher in Twin Falls ID, has been awarded a $250 New Classroom Start Up Grant to purchase adaptive seating, specifically including two Kore Wobble Chairs and seven Bouncy Bands, for her second grade classroom.

Ms. McFarland notes that students in second grade are bursting with energy. “Research indicates the positive effects of allowing for adaptive seating. The vestibular stimulation from the movement of ‘wiggling’ can increase cognitive function.”  As a first year teacher, she is experiencing first-hand the amount of time the average seven-year old needs to move. She hopes the adaptive seating will increase focus and attentiveness in select students.  Read More

Mr. Vincent Taylor, a fitness, health, and dance teacher at Idaho Arts Charter School in Nampa, ID, has been awarded a $250 New Classroom Start Up grant from Northwest Professional Educators to purchase equipment that can be used in all of his classes.  The additional equipment will enhance movement and create lifelong skills in all of the subject areas he teaches in grades 3-12. Read More