Help me give my students numerous snacks (Hershey bars, Pringle chips, Jiff to Go, Skinny Pop and Frito Lay variety pack) and drinks (Cans of Coke, Diet Coke and Smart Waters) for our snack cart.
My students are Deaf or Hard of Hearing and come from many different backgrounds. They use American Sign Language (ASL) to communicate. Most students have very low language and academic skills when they first come to me due to lack of access to language in earlier years. This creates a long road ahead of us as we work to minimize those large gaps.
My students attend an urban school where one hundred percent of the students receive free breakfast and lunch.
The students come from many different backgrounds and face many different challenges in their day-to-day lives. There are many single income families, families that are homeless and families that are receiving assistance in one form or another.
This year, I will have seven students: two first graders, two third graders, one fourth grader and three in fifth grade. My incoming first graders are performing at a pre-school/K level and will need a lot of fine and gross motor resources. Most of my students' language and communication skills are very low. My challenge is to teach them their language, ASL, and academics at the same time. It is a tough challenge, and my students give me their best effort everyday!
My Project
We are requesting a variety of snacks for their snack cart project. These include Pringles, Variety of Chips, candy bars, Smart Waters, Diet Coke, Regular Coke and more! My students and I want to continue our project-based snack cart for the staff at our school. We would sell these items throughout the rest of the year.
My D/HH students would learn so many necessary life skills through this hands-on project.
The main thing they would learn through this project-based snack cart is working with money. My goal is for them to recognize coins and bills, counting and adding the money, and for my older students giving change back. They would also learn sequencing steps in an activity, fulfilling an order, sharing, basic number recognition, reading and comprehension, health and hygiene, and so much more.
The life skills taught will also include tolerance through appropriate social skills, Deaf awareness, peer to peer work, and communication skills.
Being Deaf and using ASL to communicate, my students experience communication breakdowns all day and every day with the hearing community. So, having a snack cart would allow them to break these barriers in our school and would help spread awareness of the Deaf Community.
Having these supplies and doing this project will allow me to teach so many necessary skills to my students. I am hoping through this activity it will give them self acceptance, as well as, acceptance in our school community.
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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. Fochtman and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
