I work directly with students who struggle to meet typical classroom behavior expectations. They are the students that many teachers call disruptive or challenging. These students work with me to build up their lagging skills that interfere with their ability to learn within the classroom. The students I work with often have challenges in their home life or are children with emotional or cognitive disabilities. They range in age from 5 to 12 years old and make up 1/5 of our student body.
This work is difficult and challenging because it targets the students' physical, emotional and cognitive weaknesses and requires courage, tenacity and trust to be successful.
It is what I admire most about my students. They are loving, intelligent, courageous young people who need and deserve the opportunity to develop into wonderful adults.
My Project
The students that I work with are asked to work on lagging skills that interfere with their success in typical classroom settings. They are the students who act out, melt down, or interrupt peers' learning. They work hard at digging deep to uncover weaknesses and build up those skills. This requires hard work, courage, tenacity and effort.
The work is sometimes physically and emotionally exhausting and I need to support this effort by supplying snacks that are truly nourishing.
The snacks that I have supplied in the past are processed, shelf-stable and commonly eaten by the students. I myself live a whole-food, plant-based lifestyle and believe living, vital, nourishing food provides growing bodies with what they need, especially when they are working on skills that will impact the quality of their lives now and perhaps for a lifetime.
What I intend to do is ask for donations to fund gift cards to our local supermarket. I would then purchase fruits and vegetables from our local store as snacks for the students. Items such as sliced apples, carrot sticks, grapes, sugar snap peas, and sliced peppers would make delicious, nutritious snacks for hardworking students.
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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. Hansen and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
