I believe that my number one job is to foster a love for reading, writing, and communicating in a way that will carry my students for the rest of their lives.
I teach 175 eighth graders in an incredibly diverse middle school of over 1,300 students.
Our large population of students represents 35 various home languages, 40 different origins of birth, and a truly international student body. These students can often feel a bit disconnected in such a large and diverse group which is why I run various group activities throughout the year to allow them a small-team setting. My students run the spectrum: high achieving, needy, driven, Special Education, Honors, English as Second Language -- we're all in the class together tying to find meaning in texts and learning how to strengthen our voice in discourse.
My Project
As I see students becoming increasingly more and more stressed and overwhelmed with all they're exposed to and all that's asked of them, getting back to basic fun and games is more important than ever. These word board games such as Scattergories, Taboo, and Scrabble will allow my students, who are still children, the time to connect with each other and experience the silliness and enjoyment of just playing (while maybe not even noticing they're playing with words.)
As an English teacher, I'd like to take a day after every six-week unit and teach them the rules to one word board game and then have enough copies to run that game for my classes of 38 students.
Many of these games I remember playing as a child, and yet so many of students say they don't play games and don't have enough time. I'd like to make this the year where I introduce or remind 185 14-year olds the joy of playing board games. The games I've chosen are all vocabulary-based, so this will also support my ELL students, and will enhance the communication skills for all my students.
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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. Halpin and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.