My students need scissors, glue, markers, highlighters, and rulers to fully take advantage of their Common Core textbooks which encourage hands-on, exploratory learning.
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
My students have an amazing opportunity to use new textbooks which encourage them to "write, cut, tape, and construct" all over and in them to explore while they learn. Unfortunately, we don't have the supplies for the "highlighting, note taking, and even doodling" the text recommends.
My students attend a small middle high school in a rural, high poverty area in South Carolina.
I am a new teacher set to meet them this Monday, and by all the other teachers' accounts they are a spirited and competitive group who eagerly embrace anything once it's made into a game. The kind of team-based, exploratory problem solving their new Common Core textbook recommends suits them perfectly, and I hope to be able to facilitate taking full advantage of this learning experience as soon as possible.
My Project
It is my hope to make team tool kits for learning groups to use in my classroom. I have requested pencils, markers, crayons, rulers, scissors, glue, and highlighters to create these kits for my students to share in class.
We are lucky enough to be able to use the Carnegie Learning series this year, which is a hands-on textbook that encourages students to solve problems by doing and drawing. Instead of lecturing at students and teaching them tricks and shortcuts, I will facilitate teamwork so that they can develop a genuine conceptual understanding of mathematics through personal discovery, and hopefully along the way they will discover that math is and can be fun as well.
If my students can change their perceptions of mathematics, they can change their lives.
In South Carolina there is not a skilled work force large enough to fill the growing number of science, technology, engineering, and math jobs available. You can help my students learn to see their own potential by making math fun for them and opening doors to opportunities for them that they don't even know exist.
DonorsChoose is the most trusted classroom funding site for teachers.
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. Wade and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.