It's a New Year

Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.

My Students

"It's a new dawn. It's a new day. It's a new life for me!" Michael Buble sings on the radio, one morning, during my morning commute. Soon, I will be saying goodbye to these brilliant young students. "It's a new [year] for me!" This means new faces, new knowledge, and new rules.

I don't know anything about these new students.

I know that I am excited because it always feels great to start a new chapter in life. Therefore, I want my students to share in that same excitement. I want them to enjoy our class projects, sustained silent reading, and learning in general. I don't want these new students to feel the same penny pinch they feel at home. Now, that doesn't mean I don't expect my students to come to class prepared; it just means that I want to make their learning experience as memorable as possible. Many studies have linked emotional experiences to knowledge. Good memories are hard to wash away, while bad memories are easily suppressed. We want those hard to wash away memories during our most teachable moments, during our test/proficiency prep, and just for the sake of having a great relationship with our students. Every year, I want my students and myself to have a great start. That being said, please donate and help us get new supplies for our classroom.

My Project

If the following materials are donated, my middle school kiddos will be able to maximize their creative license in the classroom. My students will be able to make multiple connections to art, music, and literature using markers, crayons, and colored pencils to complete project-based/multi-genre assignments. Also, with the books I have added to my classroom library (Divergent, Insurgent, Allegiant, and Speak), my students will fall in love with reading about fictional Utopian societies and difficult situations. Next, the posters I have selected will brighten up the classroom, inspire my students, and prepare them for state mandated tests. Finally, these materials (glue sticks, erasers, pencils, scissors, pocket charts for the state standards, sentence strips, and baskets for turning in assignments) will help my students become focused and organized individuals, unique to the classroom community, and ready to tackle problems inside/outside of the classroom.

More than ever, my students will need to do project-based assignments that make it easy to love reading and writing.

Contrary to all the art supplies on my list, I will be teaching middle school kids to read. I want them to develop a love for reading, but it will take more than a few audiobooks and lectures. If this project is funded, it will give my students that one constant. Most important, my students will have the tools (and gain the knowledge) to be successful in my (and any) classroom.