Past projects 17
Boosting Literacy Through Fun!
Funded Mar 16, 2025Thank you so much for your generous donation to support my classroom. I look forward to utilizing these materials in my classroom not only this year but in the next year as well. Thanks to you and your donation hopefully English can come alive just a bit more for my students!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Shire
This classroom project was brought to life by Hawaii State Dept. of Ed and Marc & Lynne Benioff.Supporting Student Success!
Funded Oct 19, 2024Thank you so much for your generous donation to support my classroom. I am excited to have incentives for our National Novel Writing month activity in November as well as new copies of "I Am Malala" for when we start that unit in Quarter 3. My students and I truly appreciate your support.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Shire
This classroom project was brought to life by Hawai'i State Dept. of Ed and Marc & Lynne Benioff.Helping Students Succeed!
Funded Nov 19, 2023Thank you so much for your generous donation to support my classroom. The materials provided helped create a very successful classroom and learning experience for my students.
The wobble chairs and yoga balls provided flexible seating that has greatly helped some of my learners who were able to better focus when they could move appropriately in these chairs.
The copies of "We Hereby Refuse" allowed my honors students to learn more in-depth about what occurred during the Japanese Incarceration in our country.
The fruit snacks and mints helped serve as incentives and assistance for my students to sit through the impossibly long standardized testing season. This year my students grew immensely and had some of the highest passing scores that I have seen in years!
It is many small things like this that can add up to great achievement for my students.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Shire
This classroom project was brought to life by Hawai'i State Department of Education.Understanding the Holocaust With Graphic Novels
Funded Aug 10, 2022Thank you so much for your generous donation to purchase copies of Maus by Art Spiegelman for my students! Now more than ever, studying the Holocaust is super important so students understand the danger of ideas like anti-Semitism and how it can impact our world. This year I chose to read Maus with all my 8th graders, not just the Honors students, so your donation ensured that I had enough copies for all of my students to read.
My students greatly enjoyed reading the graphic novel despite the serious subject matter. Even struggling readers were able to focus and enjoy the graphic novel. They are also able to draw connections with what they read to the next novel we are reading in class, Animal Farm.
Thank you again for your generous support of our classroom!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Shire
This classroom project was brought to life by Bill Gates and 5 other donors.Reaching for the Stars!
Funded Oct 31, 2022Thank you so much for your donations to fund supplies for our Stargazing Night! We had about 50 students along with some of their families come to our campus on a Saturday Night to look at the stars with professional astronomers as well as share work they had done in their Science and Social Studies classes.
Your donations allowed our students to enjoy tasty hot dogs and s'mores as they awaited their turn at the telescopes. Despite the s'more machines not containing fire, some students still managed to set their marshmallows on fire! We were also able to give each student a festive glow bracelet to enhance the mood.
As we return to more normal school operations after COVID events like these are very important to allow our students to bond with each other as well as their teachers and show that learning is not only done in the classroom. Our stargazing event was a great success and we hope to do it again next year. Some of the leftover supplies will also be utilized for several upcoming events during the rest of the school year.
Thank you again for your donation to support our students!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Shire
This classroom project was brought to life by Hawai'i State Department of Education.Understanding Our History Through Graphic Novels
Funded Aug 18, 2021Thank you so much for your generous donation of the graphic novels "We Hereby Refuse" and "They Called Us Enemy'. Although I am an English Language Arts teacher, I emphasize History extensively in my classroom as I feel it is very important that my students understand the stories of history. I find it especially important to teach events like the Japanese Incarceration, because there are lessons that are still very applicable to our world today. It is a topic that relates to my students as I have some students of Japanese descent as well as the fact that our school is just a few miles from Pearl Harbor.
In order to reach all students I try to utilize a wide variety of texts and other forms of media. Graphic novels like these are something that can appeal to students of all ability levels. So far I have utilized these novels with my Honors class, but I look forward to sharing them with my other classes in the years to come.
Last summer I did a professional development program through the Heart Mountain National Park about the Japanese Incarceration. At this professional development I was given a reader copy of "We Hereby Refuse" and was able to converse with one of the author Frank Abe. I really wanted to get copies for my classroom but they were quite expensive. I am very thankful that I was able to get these in particular!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Shire
This classroom project was brought to life by Hawai'i State Department of Education.Learning Empathy Through "Wonder"
Funded Oct 25, 2018Today my students finally finished reading Wonder, just a few days before the end of our school year. In the last chapters of the novel, the main character Auggie, is recognized for his contributions to his school. Next week my team will be recognizing some of our students for their achievements, not just for academics, but for demonstrating strong character, just like Auggie.
My students have learned many lessons from reading Wonder. They have learned about being empathetic towards others, especially people that may be perceived as different. Wonder also shows that every person has their own story that shapes who they are, and that one should not judge a person without really getting to know them. Hopefully my students will apply this to their interactions with others.
I would like to thank you again for your generous donation of these books to my classroom. Not only did they benefit my homeroom students but all the students on my team. I look forward to continuing to share this story with my students in the future.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Shire
This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose.org Community and one other donor.Springing Into Shakespeare
Funded Oct 3, 2014Thank you so much for your generous donation to our classrooms. We were able to purchase over 100 copies of the No Fear Shakespeare edition of "Twelfth Night" as well as a teachers manual, and several copies of "She's the Man". Our class textbooks only provide a random selection of scenes from "Twelfth Night" with no semblance of order or background. These new materials are allowing us to do the play in its entirety with our students. Over 300 7th graders at our school have benefited from these materials
Although much of our time recently has been taken up with state mandated testing, the students have enjoyed the time we have spent reading "Twelfth Night" so far. They enjoy reading different roles and trying to figure out Shakespeare's language. I can tell they are really starting to understand it as one student told me that he thought Shakespeare's rhymes were "pretty cool".
For most of these students it has been their first exposure to Shakespeare and although some were hesitant at first, now they are really enjoying it. They often fight over who gets to read out loud. And for some reason everyone wants to play the part of the "Fool".
As the year winds down I hope that our students will have the opportunity to perform some of the scenes in front of the class as well as watch and compare "She's the Man" to the original text of "Twelfth Night." Hopefully their experience with Shakespeare this year will help them when they must study him more in depth in high school and beyond.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Shire
iPads for Enhanced Learning
Funded Nov 1, 2013First of all I would like to take the opportunity to thank you again for the donation you made in order for me to purchase iPads for my classroom. These iPads have been invaluable for the variety of classes I teach. My yearbook students have been able to use the iPads to view the photos we have taken for the yearbook, as well as preview and edit the yearbook pages. Our school works with Jostens and they are in the process of developing specialized yearbook apps for the iPad and I am excited to be able to use those next year.
My English students have also used the iPads to do research for homework as well as complete assignments. One such assignment requires students to research and learn something about a topic their book brought up. One example is that a student was reading "The Outsiders" which begins with the line "When I stepped out into the bright sunlight, from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home..." My student had no idea who Paul Newman was, and was able to look up who he was and learn a little about his acting...and realized that he had seen his face on a salad dressing bottle too!
As we finish up the school year my students are engaging in a variety of creative projects based upon the book they read this quarter. The iPads will be especially handy for this because several students want to do a movie trailer based on their book and with the iPad they can shoot and edit the video with just that one device. Not only will it be easier for them to complete their project with the iPad but they will learn valuable technology skills as well. I look forward to seeing these iPads impact my students next year and beyond!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Shire
This classroom project was brought to life by an anonymous donor and one other donor.Multimedia In The Classroom
Funded Oct 29, 2013First of all I would like to thank you again for your generous donation to my class which allowed us to receive three digital cameras as well as cases, memory cards and other chargers. I have spent the last two years building up our school yearbook program from a black and white book produced by a small club of students to an actual elective class that produces a full color book.
Last year I only had 2 older digital cameras for my class to use as well as one camera they could check out from the library when available. It was very difficult to cover all the events with such limited camera availability. Now that we have five cameras students can easily borrow a camera to go to sporting activities or club meetings. When we have a major event on campus like a school dance or talent show, multiple students can capture the event from different angles.
Thanks to your generous support my students will be able to create an amazing yearbook that all the students at our school will be able to enjoy.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Shire
This classroom project was brought to life by an anonymous donor and one other donor.