The cost of a Tri-Fold Hide-Away Block-Play Package from Childcraft, Inc. is $1598, 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>.
I am an NYC Teaching Fellow and Special Education teacher working in Woodside, Queens with children suffering from Autism Spectrum Disorder. My students range in ages from 7 to 10 years old. The number of children dealing with autism is a disorder that is growing at an alarming rate and it affects 1 in 166 of our children every day. The disorder affects students' language and communication skills and hits them hardest in the area of social interaction. A child with autism yearns for a friend but does not know how to make friends or communicate that desire; instead, he or she will disappear into his or her own world and/or engage in parallel play, never truly experiencing the joy and benefits of a reciprocal interaction.
Through interactive and educational games that teach turn-taking, sharing, listening and waiting, the children will be able to learn play skills that will help them develop relationships and engage in social interactions that will help them live a more meaningful, independent and interdependent life with others. For this reason, I am pleading for someone to supply us with the resources that will incorporate social skills and play skills into our curriculum. In this proposal, I am requesting a Tri-Fold Hide-Away Block-Play Package from Childcraft, Inc. Our children now have emerging play skills and are learning to have fun playing and engaging in activities that involve two or more players. Because we are able to incorporate the other disciplines into their play time, they are showing improvements not only in language arts, math and social studies, but also overall improvement in their behavior and citizenship in the classroom.
I would love to give my students a wider choice of activities in order to expand and develop their social skills so that they can participate in play dates at school, at home and in the community. These are functional skills we take for granted but are extremely difficult for the individual suffering from autism.
Our students have now taken an interest in building. They love to build with "jenga blocks" and they are sharing the blocks and building towers together. They talk about building a city. I would love to make that possible for them. The set of building blocks we are requesting from Childcraft, Inc. is a a Tri-fold Hide-Away Block Play package that includes a 200 piece set of unit blocks, 11 wooden community vehicles, a 16 piece set of vinyl animals, a 30 piece set of community workers, adhesives and storage trays.
We could have a very rich curriculum revolving around our community. Your generosity will be felt by each child as he/she places one building block after another in the company of a "friend."
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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. Diaz and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.