Deaf and Hard of Hearing Giving Page

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It is that time of the year where we start to revive our school garden! This project had specifically requested for textbooks, cash box, and produce scale to teach our students financial literacy through operating a school garden. Middle and high school students are now using excerpts from the textbook to plan their school garden which include planning the timing of when to plant the seeds, what types of plants can be planted together, and to project the harvest date.

Unfortunately, winter is not quite finished yet in Colorado so it delays our growing season. We, however, are in the process of constructing cold frames to protect our plants and to extend the growing season. This is ideal so that we can plant earlier in the season and extend the growing season into early fall. Students are now planning what to grow based on popularity (i.e. broccoli are not to be grown this year, it didn't sell last year but tomatoes were popular so more will be planted). The textbooks are extremely resourceful in guiding the students in planning their garden as well as learning about plant and soil science. We look forward to using the cashbox and produce scale for our first ever Farmer's Market at harvest time! Thank you for supporting our second year of operating the school garden!”

With gratitude,

Ms. Wagner

Wow! What a great project this has been. I can't believe that it all came together and not only did I have the opportunity to provide my students with a classic example of projectile motion, but I was able to engage myself in it as well, spurring new ideas, MIT lecture videos and bigger, more demonstrative ideas and experiments for my physics students.

The students absolutely loved the experiment and are eager to continue through their journey through physics and the physical world around them. The project was fun, easy to set up and very visual for the students and I look forward to using it for years and years to come.

Thank you so much for your kindness and generosity with this project, it has already meant the world to the students I used it with this year, and I'm honored to be able to use it for many, many lessons to come.”

With gratitude,

Mr. Oyler

When you walk into my classroom, you will see students working on their essay or reading a book. They're quiet and attentive to their work. You will quickly notice a handful of students moving colorful objects around in their hands while they are working, these things in their hands aren't "toys", they are fidgets and they provide sensory outlets to aid with concentration. My students use them frequently when attending to a lesson and especially during independent work. They benefit all kinds of students, from those who are gifted to those with ADHD and in between. All of them comment that it helps with concentration and gets their creative juices flowing. The small objects and putties have really made a positive impact in class.

We got the box of fidgets and books at the start of the school year, the new students were really excited and surprised to get a package just for them! They were amazed that there are people out there who care about them and their learning. The new books were definitely a big statement to encourage reading engagement. Books were immediately checked out and today, mid-school year, you're guaranteed see students carrying a book with them around the school, whenever they get the chance or finish their work early, they read.

Thank you for fueling the passion to read and for providing my students with sensory objects to use in the classroom!”

With gratitude,

Ms. Wagner

Words cannot express my thanks for your generous donation to our class project. The books that you have donated have allowed my students to reach their individual level of reading and comprehension, while working on skills such as comprehension, fluency, inferencing, sequencing and summarizing, and main idea. These materials are a dependable source of books for our guided reading lessons, which focus on one or two specific reading comprehension and fluency tasks that my students lack the most. The higher level of these books allows for my higher students to have the same amount of reading fun as my lower level students do. You have helped encourage strong reading habits, vocabulary acquisition, reading comprehension, and most importantly, helped my students relate reading to their world.

For the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing students in my classes, reading is one of the most vital skills for continued academic success, and you helped to make that process a much easier one by providing these books. I have seen students who have never enjoyed reading, all of a sudden pick up a quick habit of wanting to continue the next book in a series to see what happens next. I have seen students move up five reading levels and are so proud of their achievements. None of this would've been possible without your help.

Without donors like you, my students would not be encouraged and interested in reading, and for that, I am eternally grateful. Thank you for helping me change the lives of my students!”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Seago

I would like to take the time to thank you for your donation. We were able to purchase over 75 new books to add to our literacy library. Immediately, on the first day of school we let students know that we would be giving them time during the day to simply read. During the first 2 weeks of school, our literacy library room had 50 check-outs (bear in mind that we had 50 total check-outs for the entire YEAR last year.) I have students coming into the literacy book room between classes, before school and after school asking if they can check out a book. Also, since many of the books we purchased from your donation were recent bestsellers, the students were excited to read, since they had heard about these books from others. Word has gotten around to our little library and we have staff members coming in saying "I heard you have the latest copy of ______" or students will say "I heard you have books with deaf characters." I've even seen students come in who have stated to me in the past that they will NEVER read a book--they come in and ask me if I can help them find something to read because their friends have recommended books from the book room. The increase in the number of students interested in reading has most definitely tripled.

We are very excited about our Silent Reading initiative this year and we can't wait to get more books. We have started a book drive to focus on titles that students are genuinely interested in, and our next step is to invest in more books for struggling/striving readers. We are looking forward to seeing our students' test results improve as we continue to assess reading skills.

Thank you so much for investing in our students. I'm truly honored to see people from all over the world give top priority to literacy, especially literacy of children who are deaf and hard of hearing.”

With gratitude,

Ms. Copeland-Samaripa

This project was written to purchase materials for a new reading and language program that our residential school for the deaf is implementing this school year. Deaf students have special learning needs and for many years deaf educators have had to use reading and language programs developed for hearing students and that have been unsuccessful. Teachers were always faced with modifying these programs to meet the needs of our deaf/hard-of-hearing students. The Fairview Learning program is developed by deaf educators and targets the special needs of our students.

Teachers, teacher assistants and dormitory staff received training on the Fairview Learning program at the beginning of this school year. Follow-up training will occur with several video conferences on Fairview throughout the year.

Students will learn Dolch sight words, but due to the multiple meanings of many words, our students must learn over 500 ASL signs for approximately 200 sight words. For example, there are nine different conceptual ASL signs for the word (run) for a deaf child. In order to read and understand written English, our students must learn the ASL conceptual meanings for common phrases in English called Bridges, such as (looking for, looking at, looked up, looked down) and many other phrases that have numerous conceptual signs. We have been using the Fairview Learning program with our elementary students since the beginning of this year. The pictures I have posted are of students in 1st - 4th grades writing and illustrating multiple meanings of Dolch sight words into their Fairview notebooks. These notebooks will become students' personal picture dictionaries. We already see our kids demonstrating a better conceptual understanding of many words and phrases. The materials that you helped us purchase in this project are being used daily with our students and we cannot thank you enough for your donations and support of our students.”

With gratitude,

Ms. Cloyd

Thank you so much for the new books in our classroom. My students were so curious about all the boxes from Amazon. When we opened the boxes, the students kept looking through the great color pictures in the read-aloud books and expanse of new graphic novels.

My students have been very excited to use our expanded class library. Students have been asking to specifically read the series called "Graphic History of the Civil Rights Movement." These books have taken stories they have heard and put them in accessible printed English!

My students have also really enjoyed the expanded read-aloud books. One of my classes has really been struggling with learning the complex topics in social studies. When a read-aloud books come out, they sit up and start to engage! They are excited to see what happens on the next page.

This excitement for learning and reading is so invigorating to my classroom. Thank you for your donation to help my students understand that they CAN read and learn!”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Blake

Thank you so much for your kindness and support of this project. This is one of my favorites. The first part of the project was putting Morning Meeting books in the hands of the teachers. Even with some reservation, the stuffed bobcats sealed the deal. The students absolutely love having their own mascot in their classroom. These are used during Morning Meetings to facilitate conversation. Most of the time they are used as the "talking stick". What students doesn't love to talk when holding a stuffed animal?

The other items, such as balls, are used during different activities. Each of our morning meeting consists of a greeting, sharing, and group activity. These supplies help support all of the different activities available from our book.

Thank you so much for providing the resources needed to fully implement morning meetings in our classroom.”

With gratitude,

Ms. Carrico

Thank you for your generous donation to my classroom and students. The Ti-83 plus scientific calculators brought so much joy and life to our classroom! My students have been able to observe and analyze many different functions on the calculators over the past several weeks. They have been able to make observations that many would have never been able to make outside of our classroom.

There is a major crisis in education right now. Educators and administrators are feeling the impact of advancing the concept of STEM in all areas, especially in the area of math and science. It is through the help of wonderful people like you, that teachers are still able to give students the life changing experiences that will follow them in life.

Thank you for everything that you have done to help my classroom and students!”

With gratitude,

Ms. McAnlis