Negina & Cheng Wedding

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Thank you so much for supporting my project! My students are difficult to please, and it is essential to provide them with books that are interesting and engaging. As a result of this project, my students have more choices in the classroom library. There are current titles now. Students are so excited about these books that they are telling their friends about them too. Reading is running rampant through my classroom! My students are reading, reading, reading! Students are engaged in literature and are therefore on their way to becoming lifelong readers!”

With gratitude,

Ms. Twardowski

Thank you for your kind donations to my team of first graders. Because of your actions, we have been and will be able to power our cd players and our digital cameras. Our students are so excited by technology and you would not believe the impact your donation has had on their daily school experiences.

Please allow me to share one special story with you. Our school just received a child from another country who speaks no English. Each morning he starts his day with a book on cd and we are also using the digital cameras to teach him vocabulary by letting him take photos of things he is interested in. This small example is just one of the many stories about the children your gift have helped. Because of you, our children are excited and motivated to learn.

Thank you so much!”

With gratitude,

Ms. Harrison

These supplies are invaluable to us everyday!

The math cart is great to roll around to specific students who need to use the tools that we store in it. We keep our Magnetic Fraction Tiles and Circle in it, so students can roll it over to the Magnetic board and get to work. The Magnetic clock is great for students to grasp an understanding of using analog and digital clocks. And the Cling-on sheets we use to demonstrate concepts we do in learning groups, each student has a specific job and they illustrate what they have learned on a sheet.

Thank you so much for your generous donation to my classroom!”

With gratitude,

Teacher

Thank you so much for your donation. It is very hard to find activities to enrich student learning for students with cognitive disabilities. Their academic needs are so great that most pre-made items that meet there skills have elementary graphics and look "babyish." Some teachers choose to use these items, but for me they can be insulting. Our students are in high school and want to be treated like high schoolers.

Your donation allows me to combat this lack of pre-made enrichments by making age appropriate activities that are geared towards their academic levels with the card stock and then making them last using the contact paper. For example, one activity I made in the last week had currency on one card and pictures of candy and it's price on the other. Students worked independently trying to count the money and match it up to it's corresponding piece of candy. Once they were done, I then turned the same activity into a memory game where the students had to match the item to the coins to get the cards and win. The students had a lot of fun, it reinforced the skills they were learning in class, and at no point did they feel stigmatized.

Thank you again for your donation!”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Manseau

On behalf of my yoga club students, I'd like to thank you for your generous donation to this project. At the beginning of the school year, I held an informational meeting for any students interested in yoga and over 50 students attended. Among the reasons students were interested in practicing yoga were stress-relief, better flexibility, peace and overall wellness. I was pleasantly surprised not only by the number of interested students, but also by the self awareness and desire to improve their minds, bodies and spirits.

The materials that your donations allowed us access to are necessary for practice and every week, the club members proudly set up our practice room with the mats and blocks. Having these new and high-quality materials gives the students a sense of pride and allows them to practice yoga to their fullest.

As the club grows and students get the stress-relief, flexibility, peace and wellness they they sought, know that you have played a major part in that. We all thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Namaste!”

With gratitude,

Ms. Schelewitz Gerdes

I cannot even begin to express my joy, excitement, and gratitude for your donation to our project!

My vision for literature class is to provide opportunities for my 9th grade students to connect to literature in a deep, profound way. Throughout the course, I hope that students will grow to love reading by drawing connections to characters, relating themes to their own lives, and engaging in the stories they are reading about.

Your generous donation has allowed allow students to access texts that students can connect to and learn from. My hope is that by reading these texts, students will grow to strongly and clearly articulate their beliefs and thoughts, analyze how their lens through which they see the world impacts their understanding, and be challenged to see the world through the lens of others.

I have already seen a transformation in many of my students who have discovered a love of literature with these novels. One student particular told me after finishing Scorpions by Walter Dean Myers that it was the first book he has ever finished. And he's ready to read more! It is because of your donation that this student and many others now have begun to enjoy and feel more confident while reading.

My students and I appreciate your generosity and thoughtfulness. Thank you so much! ”

With gratitude,

Ms. Immen

Thank you so much for the Your Employment Selections (YES!) computer program. This is the first research based career program that I have found (after years of searching) that is targeted towards students with mild cognitive impairments. It shows video clips of jobs that they can actually succeed in such as a home heath care worker instead of pushing jobs beyond their reach like a doctor or engineer.

So far I have used the program both with individuals and the whole class. When the students are working as individuals they watch the short clips and then decide which job they prefer. At the end of the session I can print out a list of preferred jobs to place in their transition binders. As a whole class we watch a video clip (each takes around 3 minutes) and analyze it based upon what we are learning about in class. For example, right now we are discovering our strengths. So the students watch a clip, discuss as a class what are the strengths that an employee would need to be successful at that job and then identify for themselves whether or not their strengths meet the strengths necessary for the job and if it would be a good job for them.

The neat thing is that many of the jobs introduced in the program are ones that the students haven't heard of before. For example an occupational therapist assistant or copy room attendant. This is giving them more choices for future employment instead of saying "I want to work in a store." This will lead to better employment outcomes later in life because the students will be aware of more choices and will not be pushing for unrealistic careers or saying "I don't know what to do."

Your donations really have made a big difference in the lives of my students and will continue to do so as I use this program with future classes. Thank you so much. ”

With gratitude,

Mrs. Manseau

This is just a small way to show my appreciation for your donation made to help support my classroom. The students really the love karaoke machine supplies you donated to my classroom. Their personalities reveal themselves when I turn on the machine and hand off the microphones. We use the karaoke machine to practice reading songs, to amplify reader's theater presentations, to sing our hearts out, and just to unwind on a Friday afternoon. The extra CDs, instruments, and ribbons add to the students' creativity and enjoyment.

Extra luxuries, such as this, cannot always be provided for every classroom in our school, which is why your participation in programs like DonorsChoose is so important. Without your help, my students would not have had the opportunity to play, grow, and learn with this useful machine. Reading and fluency are vital skills the students will need for the rest of their lives, and you helped instill a love for both of them.

Without donors like you, thousands of classrooms in the United States would go without special resources.”

With gratitude,

Ms. Gregory