Hands-on Award Winners

OUTSTANDNG HOME SCHOOL EDUCATOR HONORED FOR EXCEPTIONAL HANDS-ON WORK

Kim Evans Calls RAFT the Beacon of Light in Education

It only took a brief tour of RAFT San Jose to get educator Kim Evans hooked. Evans was taking a break from teaching high school in order to home school her severely disabled daughter through her local school district's program, when a fellow teacher insisted she come along with her to RAFT. Now she relies on RAFT as an education partner to help inspire her home school students and parents.

"I think education is really, really struggling these days but there are a few beacons of light and RAFT is one of them," according to Evans, an education specialist at Ocean Grove Charter School. "It's an exciting place to be if you are an educator."

In her role as an education specialist, Evans supervises several home schooling parents, and always recommends RAFT idea sheets and activity kits to them. She is a strong advocate for hands-on learning.

"Sometimes I go to RAFT every week, probably twice a month, and I know I go at least once a month no matter what," said Evans, "I feel invigorated when I go to RAFT. I feel ideas bouncing off the walls, and I love tapping into that creativity."

In fact, Evans is such a RAFT supporter that she has been holding her regularly scheduled parent meetings at RAFT to make sure that the home school educators get exposed to all of the valuable resources there. Three-quarters of the materials she gives to her teachers comes from RAFT. Many times, she says, it is the kids who encourage their parents to keep coming to RAFT because they love the activities and the hands-on learning.

"I use every aspect of RAFT," said Evans. "I use the idea sheets, the kits, the materials, the workshops, the greenroom - I love it all. Sometimes I will go in with an idea in mind and am not quite sure how to get there. But then I talk to RAFT staff and I leave with a clear plan and all of the materials I need to get the job done. RAFT makes teaching with hands-on projects so much easier for busy educators."

"Thinking back of all of the students I have had over the years, some went on to Harvard some ended up in San Quentin. Universally, though, they all remember a hands-on project. They never say they remember some work sheet or a lecture. There is something about hands-on education that really integrates all of the other learning that has already happened. There is something more memorable about the hands on process that makes it a more valuable learning experience."

As a Hands-On Recognition Award winner, Evans will receive two years of free RAFT membership and $100 worth of RAFT Gift Cards. For more information about the Hands-On award program, go to http://www.raft.net/hands-on-award.

SEQUOIA HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER HELPS YOUNG ADULTS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS SUCCEED

Lana Clemens has been teaching special needs students in San Mateo County for more than 25 years. She is currently in charge of a group of 20-22 year old young adults with special needs at Sequoia High School in Redwood City. She frequents RAFT's Redwood City Resource Center to find the materials she needs for a series of task-oriented workshops she created to teach her students the vocational skills they will need when they enter the job market.

"I love the availability of so many different materials at RAFT. They make the tasks more interesting for my students because they are reality based, whereas some of the store-bought materials look store-bought and they aren't what the students will actually be using in real life," said Lana Clemens, Sequoia High School Adult Transition Program. "RAFT allows me to prepare my students for their real-life jobs in a creative and affordable way."

Her workshops are based on the National Standards and Quality Indicators for Transition where students learn about career awareness, exploration and activities to prepare them for their post secondary education or job training. Many of her special needs students will attend community adult work training programs when they leave her classroom. In these work training programs, they will be paid according to their production rate. The materials she gets at RAFT enables her to give them real-world experiences.

"Now teachers have to be more creative. Education has changed and group or team building activities are more important than ever. The hands-on materials from RAFT really make a difference," said Clemens. "The trend in education is leaning towards reality-based and hands-on learning. It is especially important to have this available for the visual learners, hands-on is perfect for them."

Professionally developed work training materials are available, but Clemens says they are too expensive and not realistic considering school funding. She says using RAFT is a good plan for any teacher because it is affordable.

"The other thing I love about RAFT is the constant sharing and creativity that goes on between the staff and the shoppers, and between the shoppers themselves," said Clemens. "It's not just in the organized workshops, but just cruising the aisles people are sharing ideas. For me it is Teacher Heaven."

As a Hands-On Recognition Award winner, Clemens will receive two years of free RAFT membership and $100 worth of RAFT Gift Cards. For more information about the Hands-On award program, go to http://www.raft.net/hands-on-award.

HANDS ON ACTIVITIES HELP TEACH THE JEWISH FAITH

Peninsula Teacher Honored by RAFT for Creative Activities Projects

Sigal Kletter has been teaching children and adults about the Jewish religion for almost 30 years. She says she is always looking for inspirational ways to engage students and give them enduring, educational experiences. She has been turning to RAFT for more than a decade to find creative hands-on activities that fit into her specialized curriculum.

"RAFT is like my fun backyard," said Kletter. "It's where I go to be creative and get ideas. I can custom tailor an activity to fit my needs just with the raw materials I find there. I love RAFT, I go every two weeks just to see what new materials have come in!"

Kletter is being honored with a Hands On Recognition Award for her work at the Peninsula Temple Bethel in San Mateo. She uses games pieces she finds at RAFT to create a game she uses to teach Hebrew. Recently she created an activity to teach the Jewish calendar during Rosh Hashanah using old records and other materials she purchased from RAFT. She says the project gave her a good starting point to teach about the Jewish calendar and life cycles. Her Dreidle project during Hanukkah used old CDs, marbles and cork stoppers.

Kletter has taught more than a thousand students through-out her career and relies on hands on learning techniques to get them engaged and involved in a lesson. She has also run workshops for other teachers that include a fieldtrip to RAFT to expose them to the inexpensive materials that are available if they use their imagination.

As a Hands-On Recognition Award winner, White will receive two years of free RAFT membership and $100 worth of RAFT Gift Cards. For more information about the Hands-On award program, go to http://www.raft.net/hands-on-award.

SAN FRANCISCO SCIENCE TEACHER HONORED FOR INSPIRING STUDENTS

Shelley White Calls RAFT the Catapult to Hands-On Learning

Shelley White had set her sights on a career working in a laboratory in the medical technology field. But it wasn't until after working in the field for several years that she realized her true passion: teaching science in the classroom. White has been teaching science to 4^th - 8^th graders for more than eleven years now and has never looked back.

"There is nothing like the feeling of seeing your former students go on to become the world's next generation of scientists," said White. "I have seen my students go on to Stanford, Cal, and Penn State and major in fields like biochemistry, medicine and engineering. It is truly satisfying."

White is the science teacher at St. Thomas Moore Elementary School in San Francisco and travels to RAFT at least once a month looking for kits and projects to use in her lesson plans.

"I think the students in the middle school grades benefit the most," said White. "RAFT takes the toughest concepts to learn and makes them easy to understand. By doing hands on activities the students are connected to the project and they retain the information."

White says she follows each lesson teaching students how to develop an experimental hypothesis and then analyze and graph the results so they can communicate the data they learned in the project. She says the affordability of RAFT materials and kits allows her to keep students working in groups of two and three so that nobody falls through the cracks.

Shelley says RAFT makes a tremendous difference in saving time. "Teaching science is labor intensive, but with RAFT the ideas and the materials are already there. The rest is a labor of love."

As a Hands-On Recognition Award winner, White will receive two years of free RAFT membership and $100 worth of RAFT Gift Cards. For more information about the Hands-On award program, go to http://www.raft.net/hands-on-award.