I first discovered DonorsChoose years ago when, like you, I was a citizen looking to donate some supplies to a classroom in need. I remember looking through the lists of proposals and trying to find one that seemed exciting and cool. I'd often skip over projects I considered too "practical". Now I'm a teacher and I have a newfound respect for the "practical" projects. This is one of those "practical" projects that I hope you'll help fund; I'm asking for a few dictionaries.
Sure dictionaries aren't "sexy". I know that it feels more exciting to donate a "world map carpet," an "Alien Ant Farm," or even "cool Sci-Fi books" but I assure you, in my classroom dictionaries are the most exciting books around. Of course there is a problem...
Our Classroom: 30 brilliant students of mixed economic, racial, and social background. We're an urban school with a majority "high-need" population.
Our Situation: a serious lack of some basic alphabetizing and spelling skills has caused us to invent creative and fun-filled dictionary games that teach us things a computer won't always be able to do for us. Unfortunately the 30 of us share 17 dictionaries. Of the 17: there are 6 different publishers, 5 have no cover, 7 have entire sections missing, all are written in and marked up, and several do not speak of Yugoslavia in the past tense.
The Solution: You provide us with a starter set of five brand new dictionaries that we will love and treat with the utmost respect. This starter set will give us trustworthy editions to use for class and fun. We get to continue our love of language and words by developing more dictionary games and activities without having to stop in mid-project because somebody's dictionary doesn't have any words that start with "R" in it.
...I know buying dictionaries for kids may sound like giving them spinach instead of chocolate but I assure you in my classroom it isn't. Your generous donation will ensure that my students continue to strengthen basic spelling skills while working on advanced vocabulary and language building. We love our dictionaries and it's time we were rewarded with nice, new ones. Are you willing to help?
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
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 Mr. Fox and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
