Past projects 6
Flexible Floor Seating for Striving Readers
Funded Dec 19, 2023Thank you for your support in providing additional comfortable and engaging space to help me foster a love of reading for my striving readers. We currently have the furniture spread out in 'reading nooks' and quiet spaces in the classroom. With lap desks, we have been more effective and comfortable while learning in guided lessons, small group instruction, and reading rotations. The bean bag refills will help me update some of the furniture we already have, and the stadium seats and yoga mats provided more options for my students.
My students have struggled with their reading and writing skills and with your help, I was able to create a learning environment where they can thrive and be their authentic selves, in a space that is both inviting and calm. The floor seats helped me complete a reading corner that already has a classroom library and lamps, and was just missing additional seats!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Kaplan
Card-Making and Reading Seating
Funded May 4, 2022Thank you for providing additional seating options for my striving readers. It has increased engagement and positive classroom behaviors. Our reading corner is filled with silence! All you can hear are the shifting of seats and pages turning and all you can see are students fully immersed in their reading selections.
Students were also able to write cards to their teachers at the end of last year and we had enough left over to write introduction notes to new teachers this year. We practiced penmanship, letter-writing etiquette, and word choice in this literacy-building activity.
Thank you again for supporting my classroom and providing the means to increase learning, engagement, and relationship-building.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Kaplan
This classroom project was brought to life by SONIC Drive-In and one other donor.Classroom Library for Deconstructing Race
Funded May 28, 2021With your generous donation, our classroom library expanded with many diverse voices: As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock, American Karma: Race, Culture, and Identity in the Indian Diaspora, Critical Race Theory (Third Edition): An Introduction, America Is in the Heart: A Personal History, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir, First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia. With these new texts, students have been able to explore and develop a working definition for the question: How does a critical, reflective, and progressive analysis on the cultural, historical, linguistic, and systematic development of race and race relations in American society impact our worldview?
Students have been excited to explore these texts and are WOWed by the options to choose from. They have been able to refer to different essays and chapters within these texts in their discussions around race relations, power, oppression, and social change. We will continue to use these books in a course-long discourse project where students get to research an issue that see in their current society and how it impacts different groups of oppressed peoples. In the classroom, there is a lot of activities surrounding self-exploration, self-reflection, research, and readings of others experiences and analyses grounded in theory. The students in the class itself are very diverse and with these new texts in our classroom library, they are able to see themselves reflected in the course materials.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Kaplan
This classroom project was brought to life by Chevron and 5 other donors.Classroom Library for Deconstructing Race
Funded Apr 6, 2021With your generous donation, our classroom library expanded with many diverse voices: As Long as Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock, American Karma: Race, Culture, and Identity in the Indian Diaspora, Critical Race Theory (Third Edition): An Introduction, America Is in the Heart: A Personal History, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir, First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia. With these new texts, students have been able to explore and develop a working definition for the question: How does a critical, reflective, and progressive analysis on the cultural, historical, linguistic, and systematic development of race and race relations in American society impact our worldview?
Students have been excited to explore these texts and are WOWed by the options to choose from. They have been able to refer to different essays and chapters within these texts in their discussions around race relations, power, oppression, and social change. We will continue to use these books in a course-long discourse project where students get to research an issue that see in their current society and how it impacts different groups of oppressed peoples. In the classroom, there is a lot of activities surrounding self-exploration, self-reflection, research, and readings of others experiences and analyses grounded in theory. The students in the class itself are very diverse and with these new texts in our classroom library, they are able to see themselves reflected in the course materials.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Kaplan
Even MORE Literature Circle Books
Funded Dec 13, 2020Students picked up their literature circle books after Spring Break from our school's library. After months of preparing with the Junior English team of teachers (selecting, gathering, barcoding, and covering the books, setting up unit questions and curriculum, hosting meetings with teachers/admin, communicating with parents, etc.), we have finally begun! Students had previewed the literature circle options through "Book Talks" before Spring break, and then they filled out a google form with their top 3 selections. Because of THIS Donors Choose project, students had a choice of NINE titles, each offering a diverse voice and containing elements of the coming of age/ bildungsroman genre.
Students were able to have a say in the book selection, which created more buy-in, and I was able to give each student their top or 2nd choice, depending on class size and interest.
We had our first class after book pick-up this week. Students met in a combination of breakout rooms and in-person (we have a few hybrid students in class now!) to establish norms for their group, set up a reading schedule to finish the book by May 11, and choose roles for each official literature circle meeting (Discussion Director, Process Checker, Literary Luminary, and Capstone Connector).
There was genuine excitement about the upcoming unit. The books are written by contemporary authors, and students could actually watch recent interviews with their authors or even follow them on Instagram. Students are now about 25% done with their books, and the discussions have been phenomenal. I've heard students get excited about their books for the first time this year!
Thank you so much for giving them this chance, and giving me the opportunity to teach a unit like this. We'll be discussing the conventions of the coming of age genre as they apply to these titles. This will lead to conversations about friendship, mentors, sex/gender norms, love/sexuality, cultural/racial background and expectations, money, class and socioeconomic status, and identity.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Kaplan
This classroom project was brought to life by Chevron and 3 other donors.Literature Circles: Coming of Age Books With Diverse Perspectives
Funded Oct 16, 2020Students picked up their literature circle books after Spring Break from our school's library. After months of preparing with the Junior English team of teachers (selecting, gathering, barcoding, and covering the books, setting up unit questions and curriculum, hosting meetings with teachers/admin, communicating with parents, etc.), we have finally begun! Students had previewed the literature circle options through "Book Talks" before Spring break, and then they filled out a google form with their top 3 selections. Because of THIS Donors Choose project, students had a choice of NINE titles, each offering a diverse voice and containing elements of the coming of age/ bildungsroman genre.
Students were able to have a say in the book selection, which created more buy-in, and I was able to give each student their top or 2nd choice, depending on class size and interest.
We had our first class after book pick-up this week. Students met in a combination of breakout rooms and in-person (we have a few hybrid students in class now!) to establish norms for their group, set up a reading schedule to finish the book by May 11, and choose roles for each official literature circle meeting (Discussion Director, Process Checker, Literary Luminary, and Capstone Connector).
There was genuine excitement about the upcoming unit. The books are written by contemporary authors, and students could actually watch recent interviews with their authors or even follow them on Instagram. Students are now about 25% done with their books, and the discussions have been phenomenal. I've heard students get excited about their books for the first time this year!
Thank you so much for giving them this chance, and giving me the opportunity to teach a unit like this. We'll be discussing the conventions of the coming of age genre as they apply to these titles. This will lead to conversations about friendship, mentors, sex/gender norms, love/sexuality, cultural/racial background and expectations, money, class and socioeconomic status, and identity.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Kaplan
This classroom project was brought to life by Chevron and one other donor.