Beginning the Year--Takes More than Sharpened Pencils
The cost of supplies such as a teaching easel and cardboard magazine racks from a variety of vendors, as well as books such as Winners Never Quit and Librarian of Basra: A True Story from Iraq from Barnes and Noble is $813, including shipping and <a target="new" href="http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm" onclick="g_openWindow('http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm', 300, 800, 'fulfillwindow');return false;">fulfillment</a>.
This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
Starting the year requires more than just sharpened pencils and a teacher's smiling face! At Dodge Renaissance Academy, we believe in rigorous academic work right from the start. Teaching 3rd grade reading to 24 students is one of the most complex areas of this work, and must be supported by a repertoire of tools. Some of these tools include:
Post-it notes in abundance - students use these to keep track of their thinking as they read books from the classroom library, to ask questions, give opinions, and jot down ideas. This “thinking as you read” strategy causes them to read more critically and actively, as opposed to reading without reflection.
Cardboard Magazine Racks - these allow each student to have his or her own “book nook”, where individual independent reading books are kept. Kids must be able to have an abundance of books of all different LEVELS and genres in order to engage them, keep them interested in reading and allow them to practice reading strategies with books that are at their LEVEL. Trying to send kids each day to the classroom library to pick out new books wastes precious minutes of reading time. These magazine racks allow them to keep many books in one place that is all theirs.
Steno Books - an important part of teaching reading is learning about letters and words. Our wish is for each child to have a small notebook where they will work on lessons about words and spelling, keep track of new words they learn and know how to spell, and can refer to when they are writing.
Large easel - many lessons are taught on the carpet after a book is read aloud by the teacher. Read alouds are enjoyable for kids, but also a time for explicit teaching of important skills and strategies. Having a large, multipurpose easel (chart paper is attached, also is dry erase and magnetic) allows the teacher to have one place where a variety of lessons can be taught during and after read alouds.
Some amazing books for read aloud - character education builds tolerance and respect. These new titles that came out this year would be invaluable in a 3rd grade classroom, both for read aloud and discussion and for the kids' independent reading. These would be extremely well used, as we (I) believe that without this kind of topic in a classroom, we are doing our kids a disservice, no matter how much academics we cover.
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