FAIRBORN — Fairborn Intermediate School Teacher Rebekah Fultz is a recipient of one of the grants given by McDonald’s to support hands-on activities within the classroom.
“McDonald’s gives these Mac Grants for creative lesson plans,” she said. “I teach mathematics and language arts in a fourth grade classroom, and I really believe in integrative multidisciplinary units.”
She plans to use the funds to support a project that will teach her students a lesson regarding area and perimeter and fractional parts, starting with combining a language arts and math lesson.
The students will first read “The Keeping Quilt” by Patricia Polacco and experience its literary tie-ins, followed by creating their own small quilts that will be donated to a shelter or pantry to serve the community.
“I wanted to make sure I give my students a real sense of purpose and real experiences they can really grasp,” she said. “I had a simple conversation with my mom she said ‘I really think you should give them to a shelter,’ I said ‘you’re absolutely right’ — that’s a small way in which my students can apply what they’re learning and give back to the community at the same time.”
The students will partake in this lesson beginning in December after the students have mastered long division, which is what they are currently studying.
“I’d really like my students to be fluent in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division before I move on to fractional parts, area and perimeter,” Fultz said. “Once we move on from division and we get into fractions and applying our mathematical practices through our multiplication skills, I really think those pieces of this project will help put the puzzle pieces together. As educators, we not only want to teach them the skills, but how to apply those skills.”
She hopes the students master the topics covered within the lesson, and that they feel a boost of confidence in their abilities in the process.
“I’m hoping they will feel like they’re being productive citizens, that their work is valuable, meaningful and has depth so they have a sense of accomplishment and investment in their work,” Fultz said.
