Past projects 5
A Way to Say Happy Birthday!
Funded May 8, 2020I just want to sincerely thank you for your kind and generous donation to my project. This school year was the first year that we started this little project of celebrating birthdays for every single student in my school building. Our goal was simple: give the kids something to look forward to on their birthday and give the kids a reason not to skip school. We weren't entirely sure that it would work, but it did and the students love it. If I accidentally miss a birthday, they will let me know without hesitation. With all the uncertainty of everything, I wasn't sure if the project would be able to continue, but thanks to your contributions, it can. I can't wait for next school year now. It's going to be amazing.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Kessler
Harry Potter and a Series of Literacy Improvement
Funded Jun 7, 2019"Welcome to the wonderful world of reading." That's what many of my kids were thinking when they saw me unloading box after box of brand new books for them to read.
Let me tell ya... getting this project funded was bittersweet for my classroom. You see, this project was created by the students of past for the students of the future. Allow me to set the scene a little. I had a large group of students show up to a random Student Council meeting last year. Meetings are open to all students in the building, but the only ones that actually came to meetings were the ones elected to Student Council. Imagine my shock when I walk in to our meeting and SURPRISE, 37 extra students! No lie. 37 students came with the same complaint. "The books in our library and in the teacher libraries are absolutely horrible." "The books in this building are way out of date." "There's nothing good to read here and my mom can't drive me to the library every." Student Council is all about creating change in the building. So I put it back on them. I created the project and gave them free rein to add whatever books they wanted. And oh boy did they. I never in my wildest dreams thought a $1000+ book project would get funded, but I was wrong.
A lot of students in my school struggle with reading. A lot of them believe that it's because they have nothing interesting to read. My goal was to get the students to pick a little something for everyone. We got scary books and comedy books. We got popular books and not so known but acclaimed books. We got books about sports and books about love. We got books for low level readers and high level readers. We got books that appeal to girls and books that appeal to boys, even better lots of books that appeal to both. Slowly students have started checking out books and the reaction is almost all the same, amazement that they actually found something that interest them. In our school, every English class requires 40 minutes of reading A DAY!!!! That's really hard when you can't find anything that speaks to you. So I know, even though the books are just now circulating, they already really appreciate it.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Kessler
This classroom project was brought to life by Google.org and 5 other donors.School Supplies for the Masses
Funded May 13, 2019Thank you so much for these resources. We hit a little snag right at the beginning of getting the supplies ordered. The nice, big erasers that my Student Council members had wanted were unfortunately no longer available. That made them really sad, but at the same time, they were able to go in and look for cool replacement. It took a little bit of back and forth for them to finally agree on... pencil toppers and individual pencil sharpeners.
These supplies were part 1 of 3 different orders. Fortunately I got another one funded, but most unfortunately I did not get the project that featured the pencils and pens funded. The disappointment on the kids faces when they realized that our whole grand plan of making 500 supply bags went up in smoke. However, we have adapted. We changed the idea behind the project a little bit. The goal was always to get supplies in the hands of students who really need them. Instead of making supply baggies for each student, we separated out the supplies equally to the 30 teachers in the building. Through them, all students in the building will be able to use supplies for the entire school year as they will regulate how fast the supplies go out.
That said... we have a dream. A dream that someday, we will be able to create baggies of supplies for every student to use, but I'm not disappointed in how it turned out. These supplies were AMAZING to get. The kids absolutely love using the highlighters, and love that they were able to get all the funky colored ones. And the rulers... you know we have 8 rooms in our building that teaches math in them and not one of, not a single one, had any rulers!!! That's crazy to me. They were completely grateful to receive them and even better, now that all the teachers have them, we won't have to add them to supply baggies in the future. It's a win win there!”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Kessler
This classroom project was brought to life by Craig Newmark Philanthropies and one other donor.Supplies to Survive in the Math Classroom
Funded Dec 30, 2018My students and I would like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your generous donation. I do not know that words can properly put in to meaning what getting these school supplies has meant to us. To be honest, we were struggling daily to get through lessons and assignments due to students lacking the basic supplies of paper and pencil. Just getting those two supplies as been a HUGE lifesaver for us. What I ended up doing was separating the pencils into bunches of 5 and put them in toothbrush holders with the students' names on them. When they need a pencil, they get go to the bin, find their holder and take a pencil. It has been helping to teach them responsibility too. If they forget to put their pencil back in their holder, or if they use it so much that the pencils run out quickly, they are gone until I can find another donation of supplies.
Many of the basic supplies have been so lovely to have in class, but the real stars of the donation has been the stuff we do not use every day, i.e. Post It Notes and Graphing Dry Erase Boards. A running joke among my students is that I need PINA... Post-It Note Anonymous... because I adore my Post-It Notes. I do not do entrance and exit slips in the normal way. I have a tree with an owl in (Hootie the Owl of Mathematical Knowledge and his Tree of Mathematical Knowledge) on my dry erase board in my classroom. When we do entrance and exit slips, the students are given a Post-It Note, Hootie asks 2-3 questions for them to answer on the Post-It Note and then the came and hang it from the tree branches. It's elaborate and kooky, but the kids love it. Unfortunately almost immediately after the start of the school year, I ran out of Post-It Notes completely and we couldn't do this activity. With the donation, we've been able to go back to it and the kids love when we can do. So I truly thank you for that.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Kessler
This classroom project was brought to life by Someone Who Cares and 2 other donors.Calculating Our Way to Success
Funded Mar 27, 2018I want to sincerely thank you for your generous donation to my classroom. Receiving the 15 graphing calculators was a huge event for my students. When the box arrived, they were so excited to see what was inside and when they saw that it was the calculators, they instantly wanted to use them. The very first day that they were in the classroom, the kids wanted batteries in them and to play around on them. Students were using the graphs and trying to input functions.
When the calculators arrived, the students were so excited to actually have a physical calculator to hold in their hands. Before we were trying to navigate through countless website for graphing calculators that were not always user friendly. Once the calculators were in the classroom, luckily right before state testing, the kids were able to learn how to operate a graphing calculator effectively, which helped them be more relaxed for testing and learning how to do the material. Once the calculators in the room, all the students warmed up to using them and were excited about learning how to use them.”
With gratitude,
Mrs. Kessler
This classroom project was brought to life by Ripple.