Sarah Wilson’s favorite moments as a teacher come when a student succeeds in an unexpected way. She refers to these as the “little accomplishments,” and she sees them every day. Wilson is a teacher at Georgetown’s Jack Frost Elementary. She works with pre-kindergarten students who have disabilities, and she’s been helping special education students for 15 years.
Among the new skills the students learn while working with Wilson is how to move their bodies. Specifically, the students learn how to use their gross motor muscles like their arms and legs.
Wilson uses a wide variety of games and toys to teach the students. However, many of these toys can be expensive, and moving them from one place to another can be cumbersome.
“Last year, we were doing our gross motor stations as a whole group in the cafeteria,” Wilson said. “But with construction at our school and just different schedules this year, we aren’t able to go all to the cafeteria. So, we wanted a way to transport, originally, all of our things to the cafeteria easily.”
The Texas Retired Teachers Foundation (TRTF) was able to assist Wilson in her pursuit of simplifying this process. Wilson obtained a $500 Classroom Assistance Grant from TRTF, which she used to purchase a gross motor cart as well as bouncy-balls, a ring toss set, a hop-scotch game and a Velcro ball catching game.
Wilson has seen the children fall in love with the new toys, and sees the toys as an opportunity to improve the children’s long-term prospects in education.
“Gross motor games are just fun,” she said. “Research has shown that gross motor abilities are very strongly linked to academic abilities later in life.”
Wilson believes people should donate to issues that are most important for them, and for her, that is early childhood education.
“I feel like the earlier we can get these kids working on their skills and building them up, the more successful in their lives they are going to be,” Wilson said.
Donate to help more teachers like Sarah Wilson through TRTF’s Classroom Assistance Grants program. Donate here today!
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