This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
My Students
Every day, my students ask "Miss, what are we doing today?" and the usual response is "Learning!" followed by groans and eye-rolling. My students come from low-income households and receive free breakfast and lunch in school. Often school work isn't their primary focus, and it can be hard to motivate them to take their learning seriously. As part of my practice, I try to bring creative and challenging research projects to the classroom in order to advance their learning and inquiry about the world around them.
My Project
My students enjoy taking their learning past the textbook. They like to research information and stories from history that are overlooked and ignored in the text. They bring history to life by putting themselves into student-driven commercials, skits, dioramas, and other projects. New paint, paint brushes, and art supplies are needed to keep these projects going. Paint has allowed my students to turn a plain cardboard box into a small scale replica of the D-Day invasion of Normandy, which gave them the confidence to show off their skills and knowledge to other students and teachers in the school.
New supplies will give us the opportunity to add more projects to the school year and create lasting knowledge and skills.
My students regularly do projects as a means to synthesize what we have learned from textual and technological resources. Projects offer differentiation of the learning activities, as well as group work skills which include: socializing, goal setting, time management, problem solving, personal responsibility, organization, reflection, and conflict resolution. However I am one of the few teachers providing this type of learning to our students.
Throughout my classroom, I have seen the "quiet student" turn into the star engineer of a diorama. The "writer" create a beautiful journal as someone from history. The "class clown" selling us the cotton gin via radio commercial. Last week, a special education student told me she loved working on a diorama project because writing is difficult for her, and she enjoying showing her knowledge in this medium.
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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. Purdy and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
