Help My Students with Autism Display their Artwork!
My students need a new bulletin board, a set of craft mirrors, black smart-fab fabric, 300 black zip ties, Staples Black Plastic Sheets, and five poster frames to help them display their artwork throughout the school.
I teach art at a small elementary school in New York for students with severe disabilities. The students in my school are between four and eleven years old. There are thirteen 6:1:1 classes (6 students, one teacher, and one paraprofessional) and one 12:1:1 class (12 students, one teacher, and one paraprofessional).
Most of the students in my school have Autism Spectrum Disorder, but that doesn't stop them from being amazing and unique artists.
My students really love creating art, exploring new art making materials and showing their work off when it is finished. They thrive in an environment that is well organized and structured.
My Project
I am continuing to develop and re-vitalizing the Art Program at my school. The program needs more ways to display the student work.
My tiny artists work very hard to create their pieces of art and they are so proud when they see their work hanging up in the school.
Art is starting to be seen as an important subject at my school, but I am very limited in the places that I have to display work. The new bulletin board and black fabric will help to more than double the amount of space that I currently have to display their artwork. The five frames will allow me to hang up student art work in our school office and in the staff room, providing some much needed cheer while fostering a sense of pride in our young artists.
I also plan to create a Student Art Show that would run during our next parent teacher conference. I want to transform the gym into an art gallery by tying the corrugated plastic sheets together with zip ties creating columns that can display work on four sides. Turn out for our parent teacher conferences can be low, but having the student art show the same night will encourage more parents to come and see all of the amazing work that their students are creating both in and out of the art studio. The students who were able to show off their work at our fall parent teacher conferences were so excited to show their parents and had so much pride in their work, many of the parents were surprised by the quality of work that their children produced. I want to give all 90 of our students the opportunity to share their work with their parents.
More than half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
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. Cosimano and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
