My first-grade class is a place of challenge, discovery, and growth-filled with many different opportunities for all students. They are creating a foundation for their future learning and education. My students face the challenges of living in a high poverty area, yet they come to school eager to learn every day.
The students grow and learn in different ways with different supports.
They bring to the class their wonderfully diverse backgrounds and an eagerness to learn English as many of them are ELL students and students with special needs. All of my first-grade students have unique needs and talents that help them grow as lifelong learners.
My Project
My classroom is filled with books, but the problem is that while some students' identities are reflected in it, not all students’ identities are reflected in the chapter books and read-aloud books we have in our classroom. It is important to include diversity in our libraries so that our children will be engaged and see meaning in their literature. My students come from all different ethnicities and religious backgrounds. They all face different challenges and they should have books that they can relate to in their class library.
By giving my students, books like She Persisted, Island Born, A is for Awesome, Brown Honey in Broom Wheat Tea, and other books where students can see that all people can be successful in all areas.
This is such a vital element in creating engaging readers that can develop a lifelong love of reading. It is also vital that students see that they can be anything and see people like them reflected in books, in careers, in finance. All of my students should be able to see that all children can be reflected in the literature they read, not only in their ethnicities but also in their genders. They should see their diverse characters achieving success in math and science, financial literacy and other areas as they will in these books. This way they can picture themselves in these roles. Please help my students see diversity reflected in their classroom library.
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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. O'Sullivan and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.