My students come from low socioeconomic homes. Many of their parents are forced to work out-of-state to provide for their families while the children are raised solely by one or two elderly grandparents.
While they are with me, I focus on their strengths and interests.
I ensure I am creating a warm and loving environment by greeting them with a hug and complimenting them on their shoes, clothing and anything they feel proud of. I know they are faced with many hardships at home, with much separation anxiety, never knowing when they will see their parents next. But my classroom is a loving warm environment where they can relax and rely on me to always be there, to believe in them, cheering them on, in their learning endeavors.
My Project
What's a better way to teach students print knowledge and pre-reading skill than to have them write their own books? Years ago, children would beg their parents to stay up an extra few minutes to finish reading a chapter in a book. Nowadays, most kids would much rather watch television than read books. During such a craze for all the technological advances, it is crucial to teach students the importance of reading. The best way to do it is to give students ownership over publishing their own books where they and their friends get to be the authors.
The book binding machine will allow my students to bind the stories they write into real books.
How and why do pre-k students write stories? In pre-k, I try to teach as many pre-reading and pre-writing skills as possible, since I know next year my students will be expected to read and write. One of the pre-writing skills I teach is for students to illustrate their stories and dictate their drawings for me to record. One of the pre-reading skills I teach is for students to label their drawings by sounding out the letters they hear in the words. Students combine the pre-writing skills of drawing with pre-reading skills of labeling into writing stories.
During our study of "Where We Live", students wrote about the places they live. Wouldn't it be great if we could combine their writings into a book of where we live? In our next study of transportation, it would be so great to be able to make a book about the various ways kids come to school!
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
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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. Tzeiger and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
