Past projects 5
Chapter 2: Books Aplenty
Funded Jan 26, 2018What a wonderful way to start the school week! Thank you for helping us to reach our goal of expanding our class library. I am so excited to share the news with the class and to watch them pick from the new selection during the most magical part of their day: Free Reading Time! They are such eager young readers that they have gone through most of our library already. We cannot thank you enough for the opportunity to learn about new ideas!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Arabia
This classroom project was brought to life by The First Million Fund and 12 other donors.Peep! Peep! A Chicken Embryology and Life Cycle Project
Funded Sep 25, 2017Wow! Thank you. This is such terrific news on this autumn day in NYC. Our class is actually in the middle of a science unit on sound and light, and the students are loving diving into experiments and learning how to understand and manipulate energy. It's wonderful seeing them engaged in the world around them. Imagine when the chicks come! I cannot wait to tell them that our animal life cycle investigation will include live chicks! The students will be so invested in their learning as they witness the baby chickens developing. Your contribution really means a lot to my students and I and we thank you for you donations. Once again thank you so much.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Arabia
This classroom project was brought to life by Tom's of Maine and 14 other donors.Play, Learn, and Explore!
Funded Aug 29, 2016Wow! I am truly grateful and humbled! This is such terrific news to hear just one week before the students arrive for their first day of school. Thank you for providing us with a new kitchen set, a housekeeping center and kid-friendly paintbrushes. Active play in kindergarten makes all the difference in their education, and now because of your generosity and caring, we have these wonderful materials to explore. They are going to be blown away when they see our new centers. My very deepest thanks!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Arabia
Listening Center for Kindergarten
Funded Aug 14, 2015Amazed. Inspired. Grateful. That's how your generosity makes me feel. Thank you so much for helping me fill my classroom with books children love. They quite literally love these books. Just the other day, I was restocking the books in our listening center, when a child saw A Story, A Story by Gail E. Haley, she enthusiastically shouted "I know that book! I love that book! It's my favorite book!" Her eyes lit up and and she had a grin from ear to ear. Your donations made her day and I cannot thank you enough for that.
Other children are seeing and hearing these stories for the first time. Children who have not had many experiences listening to books read aloud typically start school with fewer early literacy skills. For this reason, my Kindergarten classroom is a print rich environment. Students are offered materials and activities throughout the classroom that encourage reading, writing, and talking. They are tools for supporting children's literacy development, and they are extremely important.
Every interaction with a text leaves an impression on their lives as students and readers. The stories you have donated are highly engaging, and because of your generosity, the listening center is a positive, enjoyable learning experience for all my students. The audio makes the stories come alive and children love listening and turning the pages of the books. They are enjoying the audiobooks and simultaneously developing early literacy behaviors, such as book handling behaviors and story comprehension.
Developing early literacy behaviors makes a great impact on young learners, especially English language learners, who develop language skills through authentic learning experiences. Recently, a Spanish speaking student pointed to one of our new books and said, with a huge smile on her face, "I like it!" This is what Donor's Choose is all about!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Arabia
Let's Play! Using Play-Based Curriculum to Support Learning
Funded Jul 21, 2014This is just a small token of my gratitude for your generous donation to my classroom. The constructive play materials that you donated have helped my students every single day. We've used them to develop our social skills and promote imaginative play and creativity. For children, play is the universal language. With the new resources you have provided, I have seen my culturally and linguistically diverse students develop language skills, confidence and social skills, through play.
Without your help, my students would never have had these innovative resources. Play is such an important factor in the education of our youngest learners!
Without donors like you, thousands of classrooms in the United States would go without.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Arabia