My students need basic materials to be successful. We need pencils, a strong pencil sharpener, a color printer for projects, markers, and colored pencils.
My kids don't always get nice things in life. It is my goal that when they come to school they always have the tools they need to create quality work and projects.
My kids are a goofy bunch of middle schoolers from many diverse backgrounds.
Some are homeless or in transitional housing. Many have families that struggle to pay the rent and put food on the table. As hard as it is to accept, just having a pencil everyday can be a struggle. I try to take the stigma out of asking to borrow a supply and have gone through close to 300 pencils already this year. Many of my students also are struggling with basic organization and time management skills, which makes managing supplies even harder! I would describe our school as a typical urban school in a low income area. We teachers and staff try our best to cheer up the place with bright colors, but we are very much in need of a renovation. My students take great pride in the work they produce, I want to make sure that they have every opportunity to make their work as professional looking as possible.
My Project
With these supplies my students will be able to continue doing the excellent work they have started in Language Arts and Social Studies. When doing a map project, they will have lovely markers and pencils to bring their creation to life. When they forget a pencil, they know there will be nice shiny one waiting for them. If they need to sharpen it, they won't need to disrupt the whole class for five minutes with the rusty machine attached to my door frame. We just finished a project on ancient China where the students did online research and presented to the class on a topic. They put their whole hearts into these posters, but they were all made with black and white grainy pictures and dull markers. I want to help them feel pride in the work they do by making their projects professional and polished.
I was an absent minded youth, as many of us were.
I had the benefit of having a family that could always go out and buy me a new binder or pencils when I lost the ones I had. Many of my students are not so fortunate. It means a lot to these kids to be able to ask to borrow equipment without being shamed or ignored. It also means a lot when they get the FIRST try at something, like new markers, instead of ones that have been sitting in a classroom for 4 years and hardly work!
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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. R. and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.