Past projects 2
Multicultural Text Experiences
Funded Apr 11, 2018I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to you for your donations to my classroom last spring. I am sorry for the delay in a thank you package, I had personal requirements come up and I missed the notice for it. Last spring, you funded a project of mine to bring over 60 books to my students (64 to be exact). This project was inspired by the teacher trending hashtag #weneeddiversebooks that I researched a bit into- and it is a nation wide objective to bring diverse texts to students around the country.
In doing my research I came across a web page www.diversebooks.org, where they have published the mission statement as follows "We need diverse books is a non-profit and a grassroots organization of children's book lovers that advocates essential changes in the publishing industry to produce and promote literature that reflects and honors the lives of all young people"
.Studies have shown that over 70% of children's literature either has white characters or are written by white authors. I want to expose my students to the rich and diverse world around them through the windows of a book. We are located in a middle class, farming, predominantly white community where most of these students will spend their whole K-12 education with the same people, faces and backgrounds much like their own.
My goal as an educator is to shape the future through my students. I want to show them the possibilities of the world and share ideas across races, ethnicity's,sexual orientations, all forms of culture. We study a variety of texts about different cultures in class and analyze perspective and viewpoints. The texts that have been donated were specifically chosen off recommended lists to help expose children to different characters and authors. I want my free choice library to be diverse and engaging and invite my students to pick up a book and learn about someone other than themselves. The books are used for free read, in which I encourage the 40 Book Challenge across genres as frame worked in "The Book Whisperer" by Donalyn Miller. I also use some of the texts that I requested multiple copies of for book clubs, where small groups read a shared text and engage in conversations with each other.
I have a group of students this year that absolutely love to read and I love knowing that the books I have offered to them are rich, recommended, and diverse. Pictured you will see some of my most devout book consumers. They wish to extend to you their deepest gratitude as well. You will never know the impact that your kind donation has brought to my many future years of readers. Thank you.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Clary
Miss Clary's Math Magic
Funded Feb 28, 2017My students were overjoyed to see the packages start rolling into our classroom. It was like Christmas filled with discovery and excitement. Shouts of joys like "Cool!" "I love these" and "Miss Clary, can we use these today?" filled the air. My students overflow with enthusiasm and curiosity and they have already come up with math uses for our materials that I hadn't even thought of. They create their own card games to show different fractions and they use the tiles for multiplication games. My students will put the materials to good use and they are very thankful to the heartfelt donors who reached out to us. Thank you so much!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Clary