My students need two Kindle Fire and a classroom book collection to improve literacy, including Pete the Cat set, Money Set and Cinderella set, plus Ready-to-Read Nonfiction Stories of Famous Americans. We also need materials such as pens and an Easel Pad to make writers workshop more effective on a daily basis.
Building character education and supporting literacy growth is part of a daily challenge in my classroom. We begin each day meeting in our restorative circles, discussing successes and challenges that we are facing as a family. "We cannot expel or discipline our way out of the [discipline] problem.
I work in a very high-poverty school district in south-west Ohio.
Our school is very unique in that we either have extremely poor students or student who come from strong middle-upper class families. This can create tension between the students and we find, often, as teachers, we are having to bridge the gap between home life and school life for a majority of our students. We hold daily restorative circles in an attempt to build a sense of community and trust within our classrooms. I have a number of English as a second language students in my classroom who have little to no support at home. I have very few parents who have the skills to help their child become better readers and writers at home. Many students in my classroom are no longer allowed to check out library books since they have so many lost/overdue books. My students want to learn, but I struggle to provide rich literature and content to help guide them in becoming better readers and writers.
My Project
My students need two Kindle Fire and a classroom book collection to improve literacy, including Pete the Cat set, Money Set and Cinderella set, plus Ready-to-Read Nonfiction Stories of Famous Americans. We also need materials such as pens and an Easel Pad to make writers workshop more effective on a daily basis. I want a classroom library rich in literature and diversity for my various levels of reading. The Kindle Fire devices will give students an opportunity to read and hear books through technology. It will also allow me the opportunity to be able to purchase more e-reading material, as it comes at a much lower price than paper books.
Along with the additional content on the devices, the grade level appropriate paperback books that I selected will give students a great selection of literature to use for developing focus skills learned in 2nd grade. It will also bridge the gap for those students who no longer have access to the school library. The writing supplies will help students organize their writing materials (red pens, highlighters, dictionaries, etc) and provide different mediums for them to write on and with (chart paper, sharpies, etc.) These supplies will help our guided reading, Daily 5 centers, and Writer's Workshop run more smoothly and efficiently.
Reading and writing are key skills and these materials will fill a critical need for helping my students read and write better!
My students long to feel that they matter to someone and that someone is willing to invest in them. One of my students told me once that since they weren't important to anyone else why should they give their best each day... I want to be able to show these kids that people care. That they deserve to have nice things and rich learning opportunities. I hope that you are willing to join beside me is showing these children that people do care about them and their learning.
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