This week, we’re helping two never-before-funded teachers, one teaching Head Start in Dallas, the other, kindergarten in Omaha, get needed supplies to help their classes make sense of numbers, shapes, and counting. We hope that readers who support quality public school education will help by sharing or supporting our featured projects.
The Inoculation Project is an ongoing, volunteer effort to crowdfund science and math projects for red-state public schools in low-income neighborhoods. As always, our conduit is DonorsChoose.org, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation that facilitates tax-deductible donations to specific, vetted projects in public schools.
This never-before-funded teacher at a Dallas Head Start currently has 2x matching funds available to her project, thanks to PNC Grow Up Great®: Extending the reach of innovative, high-quality resources and experiences in pre-K classrooms advances the program's mission of inspiring great futures for young children.
MAIN PROJECT
Resources: Help me give my students math supplies to help with number and shape recognition!
Economic need: Nearly all students from low‑income households
Location: Martin Luther King Child Care Group, Dallas, Texas
Total: $225.07 (2x match offer)
Still Needed: $225.07 Completed! Thank you! Please see long-term project below.
Teacher’s Comments from Ms. Richardson:
My Students: My classroom is full or 3 and 4 year old Head Start students who love to learn! All of my students live in poverty and many are in a single parent household.
We are working on math skills and my students are in need of some manipulatives to help with counting, number, and shape recognition.
These are important skills that serve as a foundation for my future mathematicians! They work hard to ensure that they are as well prepared for kindergarten as some of their more advantaged peers.
My Project: With new math materials, my students will be able to work on counting skills in both small groups and individually. They will increase their fine motor skills as they place objects in groups and work with shapes.
Increasing their math skills will help them be prepared to enter kindergarten on a level playing field with their more advantaged peers.
At our Head Start center, we use a supplemental math curriculum called High Five Mathematics. Through this, we are able to support math through STEAM and we can address individual child goals. This helps to ensure that they are all well prepared for their future educations.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
US Rep Loretta Sanchez (CA-46) speaks about her Head Start experience:
This project had matching funds, early on, but the funding apparently ran out on that offer. Now the project is due to expire in mid-June and still has some way to go. We have today and two more Sundays to push it close enough to completion that it moves up in the DonorsChoose “urgent” designation and someone takes it the last mile (or, we do!) I think we can do it.
LONG-TERM PROJECT
Resources: Help me give my students a language roll and learn pocket cube and a 120-bead magnetic rekenrek line for counting.
Economic need: Nearly all students from low‑income households
Location: King Elementary School, Omaha, Nebraska
Total: $338.46 (now has another 2x match!)
Still Needed: $239.93 $97.26 ($49 from us)
Expires: June 13
Teacher’s Comments from Ms. Tucker:
My Students: My class is from low income families, who live in an inner city community. Most parents work long hours and are unable to take their children outside of the local area.
These children are in need of everyday necessities.
Most of these children do not have what they need to become successful in the classroom.
These children are very sweet and crave attention from adults and other support from around the school. All they want is to find out about the world around us!
My class is inquisitive and want to know everything they can about Math, Science and Social Studies.
My Project: We are learning number sense through bead lines. These items will allow us to visually as well as tactile learn what number sense means.
Number sense is an extremely important skill in every day life.
These items will be used daily, during large group, to develop number sense and help my students grow in their mathematical skills.
The cubes will be used to differentiate learning for the lower students. The bead line will be a visual for all learners.
The other items will be used as support for math stations as a review. The children love to count and these will come in handy to count during our counting collections time.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Our main project from last week was completed, with a big assist from our readers!
Ms. Weiser’s South Carolina 4th grade will get a small greenhouse and a tumbler-type composting bin, so they can expand their school garden project to start plants from seed and make compost on-site. The project was Conserve, Protect and Restore TSE.
She writes: Your generous donation has brought life to our school in ways that will impact the students for their entire lives. We can't thank you enough for stopping and taking the time to read about our project and then giving your hard earned money to help us grow leaders through gardening.
You are the real MVPs!
Our Dollars at Work
Just a couple of weeks ago, we helped Mrs. Harrison’s project for her third-grade class in South Carolina. They’re using the “One Small Square” method, in which students drop a cardboard square and record their observations about everything they can see going on within that frame. The project was Pondering About STEM in Spring. (More photos at the link.)
Thank you all so very much for making this project happen! ...
The weather is so beautiful right now, and we are going to make use of the gorgeous weather! Thank you all for helping us to enjoy the season full of wonder to ponder.
Founded in 2009, The Inoculation Project combats the anti-science push in conservative America by funding science and math projects in red-state classrooms and libraries. Our conduit is DonorsChoose.org, a crowdfunding charity founded in 2000 and highly rated by both Charity Navigator and the Better Business Bureau.
Every Sunday, we focus on helping to fund science or math projects, preferably in neighborhood public schools where the overwhelming majority of students come from low-income households. We welcome everyone who supports public school education — no money is required!
Finally, here’s our list of successfully funded projects — our series total is 745! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.org.