You're on track to get doubled donations (and unlock a reward for the colleague who referred you). Keep up the great work!
Take credit for your charitable giving! Check out your tax receipts
To use your $50 gift card credits, find a project to fund and we'll automatically apply your credits at checkout. Find a classroom project
Skip to main content

Help teachers & students in your hometown this season!
Use code HOME at checkout and your donation will be matched up to $100.

Your school email address was successfully verified.

Mrs. McDonald’s Classroom Edit display name

Support her classroom with a gift that fosters learning.

  • Monthly
  • One-time

We'll charge your card today and send Mrs. McDonald a DonorsChoose gift card she can use on her classroom projects. Starting next month, we'll charge your card and send her a DonorsChoose gift card on the 17th of every month.

Edit or cancel anytime.

cancel

Support Mrs. McDonald's classroom with a gift that fosters learning.

  • Monthly
  • One-time

We'll charge your card today and send Mrs. McDonald a DonorsChoose gift card she can use on her classroom projects. Starting next month, we'll charge your card and send her a DonorsChoose gift card on the 17th of every month.

Edit or cancel anytime.

Make a donation Mrs. McDonald can use on her next classroom project.

Your custom url is https://www.donorschoose.org/janelle-mcdonald

This spring, we will be doing a novel study as part of our 6th grade curriculum. Our school has some class sets of novels, but many of them are books my students have already read or familiar with. When researching what I wanted to use for our novel study, I loved the idea of combining our language arts with social studies, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas does just that. It's an amazingly heartbreaking story that takes place in the heart of the Holocaust. We will be learning about European history as we start reading this book, so the two go hand in hand. I absolutely love teaching the Holocaust because often, my students don't have a large working knowledge of what actually happened during that period in history. Getting 6th graders to read can be a struggle sometimes. I have found that if I use high interest, grade level texts that engage them and force them to think critically, they absorb so much more than reading out of a textbook or doing a worksheet. Having a book for every student will allow us to read it together, as well as break into small groups for further discussion. Our school is a 1:1 with Chromebooks, which is awesome because there is so much I can do with access to technology. However, there are many things I'd like to do that require my students to watch videos independently, and with 30+ kiddos in one room, that can be extremely difficult with everyone's volumes way up. Headphones will give them the opportunity to listen and work at their own pace. I will keep them in my classroom as a set and when they are finished with them, we will wipe them down to keep things clean and avoid sharing germs!

About my class

This spring, we will be doing a novel study as part of our 6th grade curriculum. Our school has some class sets of novels, but many of them are books my students have already read or familiar with. When researching what I wanted to use for our novel study, I loved the idea of combining our language arts with social studies, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas does just that. It's an amazingly heartbreaking story that takes place in the heart of the Holocaust. We will be learning about European history as we start reading this book, so the two go hand in hand. I absolutely love teaching the Holocaust because often, my students don't have a large working knowledge of what actually happened during that period in history. Getting 6th graders to read can be a struggle sometimes. I have found that if I use high interest, grade level texts that engage them and force them to think critically, they absorb so much more than reading out of a textbook or doing a worksheet. Having a book for every student will allow us to read it together, as well as break into small groups for further discussion. Our school is a 1:1 with Chromebooks, which is awesome because there is so much I can do with access to technology. However, there are many things I'd like to do that require my students to watch videos independently, and with 30+ kiddos in one room, that can be extremely difficult with everyone's volumes way up. Headphones will give them the opportunity to listen and work at their own pace. I will keep them in my classroom as a set and when they are finished with them, we will wipe them down to keep things clean and avoid sharing germs!

Read more

About my class

Read more
{"followTeacherId":4773429,"teacherId":4773429,"teacherName":"Mrs. McDonald","teacherProfilePhotoURL":"https://storage.donorschoose.net/dc_prod/images/teacher/profile/orig/tp4773429_orig.jpg?crop=1:1,smart&width=136&height=136&fit=bounds&auto=webp&t=1673302939786","teacherHasProfilePhoto":true,"vanityURL":"janelle-mcdonald","teacherChallengeId":20999646,"followAbout":"Mrs. McDonald's projects","teacherVerify":-1144465262,"teacherNameEncoded":"Mrs. McDonald","vanityType":"teacher","teacherPageInfo":{"teacherHasClassroomPhoto":true,"teacherHasClassroomDescription":true,"teacherClassroomDescription":"","teacherProfileURL":"https://www.donorschoose.org/classroom/janelle-mcdonald","tafURL":"https://secure.donorschoose.org/donors/share_teacher_profile.html?teacher=4773429","stats":{"numActiveProjects":0,"numFundedProjects":7,"numSupporters":37},"classroomPhotoPendingScreening":false,"showEssentialsListCard":false}}