Past projects 5
Cool Classroom Library Books for 6th Graders!
Funded Oct 17, 2024These high interest texts have been flying off the shelves of my classroom library. The day the boxes arrived, my kids crowded around them and were excitedly asking when they could borrow them. In my classroom, students must have an independent book of their choice at all times. This book is used for their nightly reading log homework assignments and toward book projects. Students are so excited to have a full, complete Harry Potter set, Heroes of Olympus, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and Land of Stories series to borrow now. So many of my students have already had the joy of borrowing a brand new book thanks to you. One of my special education students, who I'll call M, is slowly working her way through Harry Potter and loving it. We even have a waiting list for the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books!
It's so gratifying to see students excited to read, and it's a wonderful feeling to have high quality books to recommend to the students so that they can read about beautiful and fascinating worlds. My students and I are deeply grateful for these donations, and these books will enrich my classroom library for years to come.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Sabino
Two Laptops for 120 Eager Learners
Funded Feb 26, 2020Many of our donors use technology at home but are not as knowledgeable as you about how it's used in schools. How is the technology helping your students learn?
We use our "Donors Choose Laptops," as the kids affectionaly know them, on a daily basis. We have monitors who unlock them and take them out of the closets, and we have four stations set up in the back of the room. School wide, we use a website called Pupilpath, which is an online gradebook and a place where students and parentscan see their most recent grades. Every day at lunch, I eat in my room and have my monitors helping other students during "ELA extra help," and I have my regulars who come up to use the laptops. They'll do homework for other classes, DuoLingo (a free website for English Language Learners to work on their English or to learn other languages), and to check their grades on Pupilpath.
Then in class, we use them daily during writing class. The most recent writing assignment that required research online was argumentative essays for which students investigated the pros or cons of uniforms, zoos, cell phones in school, and homework. Students completed a virtual research note taker in Google Classroom. This had their brainstorming, research fact gathering, paraphrasing of facts, MLA citation of websites, draft, virtual peer editing and commenting to strengthen each other's work, and then publishing. We had a publishing party with hard copies of their essays during which students brought snacks and walked around having a "gallery walk" of the essays and leaving each other positive post-it note compliments about each others catchy hooks, claims, choice of evidence, analysis, and conslusions. The writing unit we began two weeks ago is an informative news article about an influential person making the world a better place through philanthropy, activism, or an invention that has helped society. We have students writing about Drew Brees, Malala Youzafzai, Marie Curie, Bill Gates, Donna Karan, and many more.
We still use the school carts, but they usually have a handful of computers with troubleshooting issues or dead batteries, so students really hold their breath when I choose from the "popsicle stick up" of names to see which four students get to use the Donors Choose laptops that day. On days when the carts are all occupied by other teachers, we have timers set at each of our four laptops (two from this project and two from a project I requested last year), and each student can use one of the research stations for 5 minutes before returning to their seat and calling another student's name. It's really sweet to see how gingerly and tenderly they carry these four computers; they really understand the kindness behind this website.
One boy whose family is from Pakistan, doesn't have any device at home. His parents have smart phones, but they don't really let him use them because he's one of five siblings. He comes up every day during lunch, and if no one else needs to catch up on work, he loves to work on his English on Duo Lingo and check each of his subjects' Google Classroom. He really values the access to these computers, and it would not have been possible without Donors Choose.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Sabino
Bring Our English Class into 2019!
Funded Aug 15, 2019These two laptops have allowed my students the access to a variety of websites and electronic resources. We use Google Classroom, which allows students to access handouts electronically, submit work electronically, and discuss material and comment on each other's responses.
The students really take ownership of these two laptops and are so excited to have resources that are just for our classroom. Whenever a student needs to research something for their writing piece or find synonyms using an online Thesaurus, we have these two computers to turn to.
Soon we will be typing up our personal narrative writing pieces using Google Docs, and students will be using our laptops around the clock. They will also trade drafts a peer review each other's work by making electronic comments in Google Classroom.
Thank you so much for these resources.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Sabino
This classroom project was brought to life by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and 6 other donors.A Laptop for Exploration and Inquiry in English Class!
Funded Feb 9, 2019There are so many websites I can use, as an English teacher, to enrich my students' learning experience. Thank you for the laptop for my students. We use Google Classroom, Quizlet, NewsELA, and many other educational resources. NewsELA is a website that takes news stories and modifies them to be on various reading levels so that all students can read at the level tailored to them. This allows me to differentiate to each student's perfect level of challenge. My students are so excited that this laptop doesn't have to be shared with the rest of the building and is just for our use. Thank you so much!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Sabino
Multilingual Books for ESL Learners
Funded Dec 5, 2012My students and I are so grateful for your generous donations towards classroom materials. We received bilingual books, a few dictionaries, and clear dry-erase pockets for writing. My students are beginner and intermediate ELLs (English Language Learners) who face the challenges of being new to America while also being expected to suddenly jump up to par with their English reading comprehension and writing skills. One student in particular comes to mind who has especially benefitted from the donated resources. She is a 13 year-old student from Yemen who has only been in America for a year now. She is a SIFE (Student with interrupted foreign education), meaning she was not formally educated until now. One of the donated items is an Arabic-English picture dictionary. It is not a babyish picture dictionary, but a rather mature one with beautiful pictures on a multitude of topics. Her eyes lit up at this beautiful resource, and now she comes to school early to work with me on her English. She is such a hard worker, but her lack of education has presented her with a disadvantage; this visual aide that strengthens her native language of Arabic while also introducing her to English words has been an invaluable asset. The dry-erase pockets have also been a wonderful tool for writing lessons. The students place a piece of their own writing in the pocket, and then they can trade papers with a peer and edit each others' work. Because of the dry-erase feature, I can walk around and further correct the students' corrections! Because languages naturally differ in structure, ELLs often have missing words or need to reverse word order. The dry-erase feature allows quick fixes for immediate feedback. When I explained to each class that we had received free materials as a gift, each class spontaneously clapped and cheered. They loved writing the thank you notes because they felt genuine gratitude that people out there care about us and our learning. Thank you very much!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Sabino
This classroom project was brought to life by Build-a-Bear Workshop Foundation and 3 other donors.