AHEF partnerships provide district students with dictionaries
(05/07/2021) The Anoka-Hennepin Educational Foundation (AHEF) recently purchased and donated over 2,800 dictionaries to students across the district. The donations were made possible through partnerships with the AHEF, Anoka, Coon Rapids and the Blaine/Ham Lake Rotary Clubs, the Ramsey and Dayton Lions Clubs, and Connexus Energy.
On April 23, AHEF executive director Tess DeGeest visited Franklin Elementary School to deliver “A Student’s Dictionary” to two third grade classrooms.
“The dictionary project is wonderful,” DeGeest said. “We have high school student AHEF board members who still use their dictionaries. In 2015, we evaluated the program to see if it still brought value to our students and it was our student board members who absolutely insisted we continue the project because of its value. After watching their older siblings get dictionaries, younger students look forward to third grade when they get their very own dictionary.”
One of the highlights every year in the dictionary is students learning that the dictionary also includes the longest English word, an encyclopedia, and other fun features such as the braille and American Sign Language alphabets.
“Every year I love seeing how excited the students get about their dictionaries,” said Kate Jensen, third grade teacher at Franklin. “They love looking up hard words, and they pour over the encyclopedia-type pages in the back. For the rest of the school year, the dictionaries always become a staple during free choice reading time. Thank you to all the AHEF donors and participating organizations that work to make this happen for our students.”
As students explored their dictionaries, Kenzee, a third-grader at Franklin said: “I love the dictionary! I really like the sign language in the back.”
View photos of students discovering all their new dictionaries had to offer at Franklin on April 23.