Past projects 2
Building My First Full-Year Classroom
Funded Jun 6, 2024My first full-year of teaching is off to a wonderful start. Relationships are forming, routines are being solidified, classroom norms and expectations are being followed, and I am loving being in a classroom each day.
Your generosity with school supplies has been incredibly helpful. Students are crazy about our Community Corner (or the "Chill Zone", as they call it) where they can sit quietly on a rug with their meditation cushions and spend the first few minutes of class settling in calmly while practicing mindfulness or meditation. The hole puncher and pencil sharpener (a favorite of theirs) have been used every single day for/by them and the laminator has brought a new level of fun to teaching for me - I laminate everything now! Each pod of student desks has their own "toolkit" that I created with the donated highlighters, pencils, markers, colored pencils, etc. all packed into the four-compartment caddies. Even though they are sometimes a distraction(!), it's been useful to have these supplies at their fingertips to share during class and help with classroom lessons/activities. The extra binders have helped out students that couldn't afford their own and the stacked organizer bins have given all students somewhere to hand-in or collect work in an organized way. Creating anchor charts on the sticky easel pads has become one of their favorite learning activities after we finish a lesson or unit.
My classroom would not have been the same without these essentials and I am so grateful for your financial support to enhance my students' learning experiences and help build a functional classroom environment for everyone.”
With gratitude,
Mr. Campanella
This classroom project was brought to life by An Anonymous Supporter and 11 other donors.Mindfulness Matters: Bringing Whole-Body Wellness To Our Communities
Funded Dec 4, 2023My experience creating, organizing, and running the Mindfulness Matters workshop for educators in Brockton, MA was something I will never forget. This was my first time building and delivering a presentation like this, and it was hard. I called on my own practices of things like mindfulness, meditation, and self-love to put me in a position to share what these practices could mean for my fellow educators, as well as our students and school communities. There were almost 50 educators in the audience and I believe there was a deep impact felt with tangible takeaways for everyone. We had individual reflection time, pair and group brainstorming sessions with similar and different job roles, group listenings of podcasts and informational recordings, group meditations, share-outs of personal stories and collective challenges in the classroom, insights and ideas on how to strengthen educator community groups and bring more of these principles into our personal and teaching lives, and much more.
The feedback I received during the workshop, directly after the workshop, in personal emails later, and in the feedback survey were positive, insightful, and energizing. I am excited for future opportunities to share my own vulnerability and these practice and principles in other workshop settings! I'm actually now 2 weeks into a 6-week mindfulness/yoga certification program that was recommended to me by one of the workshop participants as she thanked me on her way out. I know that this experience helped educators 1) take care of themselves, 2) build a toolkit to help their students take care of themselves, and 3) feel empowered to advocate for themselves and their peers across our school communities. I am so grateful for your help with making this happen. Thank you so much.”
With gratitude,
Mr. Campanella
This classroom project was brought to life by A family that cares about Boston and 8 other donors.