Past projects 2
Bilingual Pride Through Bilingual Literacy
Funded Mar 10, 2016Thank you immensely for the gift of bilingual books for my English as a Second Language students! I serve all of our K-8 school's English learners who come from families speaking Spanish, French, Arabic, Haitian Creole, Portuguese, and Vietnamese. With your gift, I was able to collect enough books to enable students to borrow books overnight to read with their parents. When they return a book, they are always so eager to check out another! Some students check out a new book every single day. We are building our "Bilingual Lending Library".
The idea behind building the library was in response to a common problem: as teachers, we tell students to read at home each and every night. We tell families of the youngest students that the parents should read to the children each night. The problem is that many parents of English learners do not know how to read English themselves. They are often much more comfortable reading books in their native languages. I thought, "Why not send home bilingual books? These books can foster so much discussion about language as well as about the content of the books." Building a library like this is expensive. Your donations have been crucial to the success of this budding program!
The students LOVE these bilingual books. They are high quality, high interest books at a variety of ages and reading levels. Students report that they love the time they can read with their parents. Often students read the English part and the parents read their home language part. A few students have told me they are teaching their parents English through reading the bilingual books together. I suspect that their parents are also able to teach them new words and sentence structures in their first languages as well-- reinforcing the importance of bilingualism and proficiency in their native languages.
Bilingualism is a gift that no one will be able to take from them-- it is an asset to children from even the lowest of economic backgrounds. Thank you again for making a difference in their futures!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Majmudar
This classroom project was brought to life by #BestSchoolDay and 5 other donors.Collaborating and Projecting Pride in our Work!
Funded Sep 17, 2014Thank you so much for your generous donation of a document camera to our classroom. I was so excited when I knew you funded our project, and my students were thrilled when the package arrived and I explained what it was. The document camera allows me to enlarge and project a piece of paper, math manipulatives, or anything else to a screen for the students to view.
The document camera is transforming the way I teach and the way my students learn. Now, instead of having my students simply share their work orally, they can show the whole class their work as they read it. Other students can collaborate by sharing suggestions or by giving specific feedback. Classmates can simply point to the screen at the part they want to address. Additionally, I can have students work out problems with math manipulatives for the whole class to see. Other students can catch mistakes or share more efficient problem solving strategies. I keep finding new ways to enhance my instruction using the document camera!
Thank you for helping to bring my classroom into the 21st century-- one of knowledge building, collaboration, and technology!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Majmudar