Have you ever felt alone or embarrassed because everyone around you was better at something than you were? What if Bucky Badger himself became your biggest fan and offered to help you out? You'd jump on board with him, right? Come on, you know you would...
My students are 26 fourth-graders in a small school in Southeastern Wisconsin.
Our motto is to be respectful, safe, and responsible learners every single day! Our fourth graders are vibrant learners who read best when they have materials at their reading level.
My Project
What makes me smile about kids is that they are all uniquely different. Heck, if all kids were the same, life (and my job) would be pretty boring. All of my students are in the fourth grade, but not all of them read at a fourth-grade level. Some of them don't even read at a third-grade level. For a handful of my students, reading is the hardest thing ever...
Many of the books in our classroom library are at a fourth-grade reading level. For a kiddo who doesn't read at a fourth-grade level, there just aren't as many books for him or her to choose from. What ends up happening to these readers is that they pick up one of these fourth-grade level books anyway just to fit in with their peers, and as a result, they end up 'fake reading' during independent reading time, causing them to feel even more unsuccessful as readers.
The books I'm requesting for this project will be available for my readers who struggle the most. I need to get books in their hands at their level!
Students need to be literate in today's world.
They need to feel confident in who they are and what they know how to do. So what does BUCKY have to do with this? I plan to put all the books from this project in a Bookin' It With Bucky bin. I already have the sign for the bin and the life-size Bucky to match. Then when I notice one of my struggling readers without a book, I plan to break into a revised version of my alma mater's fight song: "If you want to be a READER, just come along with me..."
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. Bongers and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.