My students need a digital camera, photo paper, memory cards, CD-Rs, 5 biographies, including "Tito Puente - King of Latin Music Book with DVD" and 6 copies of "I Am Rosa Parks".
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
The 35 fourth grade students I teach this year live in a high-need, gang infested neighborhood where the family works so hard to provide food on the table. Parents depend on the school for the free breakfast and lunch program, as well as the after school program, to help take care of the children while they are working late hours. Our class is involved in the PeaceBuilder concepts which are to Praise People, Give Up Put Downs, Seek Wise People, and Notice Hurts and Right Wrongs. All fourth graders in California take a writing test in the spring when students have to write a three to five paragraph essay. Our students are writing everyday and the autobiography/ biography project we plan on writing will help them have pride in themselves, their families, and their culture.
Currently, our school of over seven hundred students in Kindergarten through sixth grade has a total of four digital cameras that are used schoolwide. It would be fantastic for our fourth grade students to have their own digital cameras to use exclusively during the project. They have shown incredible interest in the biographies of historical figures of California and characters in our reading anthology. The project we plan on completing using the resources from Donors Choose will be greatly valued by the students as a result of the quality of photos and the writing that they will create.
We will be taking photos for the stories with the digital cameras and storing work on the recordable disks. We will print the photos and use them in their autobiographies / biographies, along with the text they create from their research and experiences. We will be reading the autobiographies and biographies that we can in our school library and other classroom resources, but the sets of books from Donors Choose will also be valuable assets, since they are connected to the students' culture and are of historical figures we study in fourth grade. Students will be able to present their finished books to their peers during Book Club time, as well as to their parents at Open House in the Spring. We will even make sure to document the process on film to share with Donors Choose in the feedback and thank you process.
"A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words" is the title of our project since we'll be using digital technology, experiences, and research of the students to express themselves through this writing project. This project will be super significant to students since it will have beautiful memories as related to the person they are writing about, whether it be someone in their family or a historical figure they are interested in. I believe students need to be involved in projects that help them learn about themselves, as well as the history of other people around them in society. This project will be a terrific and motivating way for students to connect with their families and history in general as they research the interesting lives of people in California.
Nearly all students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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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 Mrs. Galleguillos and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
