My students need different types of games to study probability and chance.
$1,748 goal
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Hooray! This project is fully funded
Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month
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.
Students are fascinated by games. Board games and computer games engage them for hours, but they rarely explore them deeply enough to understand how they work.
My students are middle school students in an urban public school in California.
Like most middle school students, they exhibit curiosity, excitement, and the energy unique to adolescents of this age. Many of them are coming from environments where they don't have the opportunity to play and explore outside of school.
My students are from low-income families. Over 80% of them qualify for free or reduced lunch. At least 75% of them are English Language Learners, where English is rarely spoken at home. Most of them are from homes where their parents have not attended school after high school; many of them have parents without high school diplomas.
Their homes are often very stressful. These youngsters are asked to take on extra (adult) responsibilities--babysitting, cooking, cleaning, translating. They often do not get an opportunity to just be children.
My school has eliminated electives due to high-stakes tests. Students need an opportunity to play and explore.
My Project
This project will give students an opportunity to explore games and use their imaginations to design games of their own. As youngsters, children play games but rarely understand the strategies involved. They often make up games of their own--on the schoolyard, in their backyard, or in a classroom. But they haven't really studied the mathematics necessary to design a game.
This project will allow students to explore games—both traditional board games and electronic games on an iPad. They will play the games enough to be able to thoroughly understand the strategies used to compete. They will describe the strategies in writing and in class discussions. They will use their knowledge to design games of their own.
Mathematics is often inaccessible to our students. The concepts are abstract and inapplicable to their lives. This project will give them opportunities to play with math, research strategies, and design games of their own, As a result, the mathematics will become real.
My students often see school as a sterile, boring institution.
Many of the classrooms are no different than they were 100 years ago. With high-stakes testing, electives have been eliminated. Many students are disengaged.
This project will give students an opportunity to play while learning. The learning will be non-traditional--playing and exploring games and strategies, designing games, and presenting these games to others. They will be engaged in learning while doing something they like.
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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 Mr. Lake and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
