This week, we’re helping two preschool classes, one in Jacksonville and the other near Detroit, to get some resources to help their teachers reach them remotely with lessons that are difficult to convey without in-person contact. 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.
Week after week, we are seeing early education teachers struggle with how to teach tiny children remotely. Both our projects this week address this at the preschool level. This preschool teacher, in a town just north of Detroit, wants to send each student a book that will help them with math concepts in a fun way. I added links to the items in question because I had no clue what this stuff was and thought someone else might not either. Now I get it, and can see how kids would have fun with it.
MAIN PROJECT
Resources: Help me give my students a hands-on approach to learn their numbers while at home.
Economic need: Nearly all students from low‑income households
Location: Holden Elementary School, Sterling Heights, Michigan
Total: $160.42
Still Needed: $135.42 Completed! Thank you! Please see next project.
Teacher’s Comments from Mrs. McLaughlin:
My Students: Distance learning is something I thought I would never see in preschool, as it is without a doubt not developmentally appropriate. But - here we are! This leaves me scratching my head, trying to think of a way to make distance learning appropriate in preschool.
To add to the stress, the students in my preschool come from low-income households with varying risk factors.
Online learning becomes a greater challenge when some families don't have the internet (even in the year 2020) or lack the basic school supplies. This creates an unimaginable challenge - but one that I am willing to do whatever it takes to make sure my students can still receive an education, even from afar.
My Project: How does a teacher teach math concepts to preschoolers from a distance? How does a teacher make it developmentally appropriate and engaging, yet easy enough for a parent to help guide the student? Even more so, how can I bring a smile to my student's faces, when their young 4-year-old self just wants to go to school because they do not understand what is going on in the world.
While I can't hug my students right now - with your help, I can bring a smile to their faces.
Before we left for what would ultimately be the end of the school year, I sent my students home each with a bingo dabber to do activities. Now - I would like to add a smile to their face with a special item that will be sent directly to their house. These journals will be used to learn math in combination with the bingo dabbers markers that have been sent home.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
For our longer-term project, we’re making progress helping this Florida pre-K teacher provide each student at home with a kit that allows them to build a fanciful “cottage” and sprout a tiny real garden in its yard.
LONG-TERM PROJECT
Resources: Help me give my students their very own garden kit to create, grow, and experience!
Economic need: Nearly all students from low‑income households
Location: Hogan-Spring Glen Elementary School, Jacksonville, Florida
Total: $393.29
Still Needed: $229.76 $164.76
Teacher’s Comments from Mrs. Bopst:
My Students: Our classroom was a vibrant, exciting location for my students to explore and investigate as they mastered the VPK curriculum. Every day 20 smiling faces would enter the room curious and eager to discover what fun and learning would be available and waiting for them that day. Our 'family' cooperated and shared and investigated together so that each child felt supported and capable in learning.
In the classroom, I would provide many hands-on, real life, close up experiences to encourage a love for learning and an interest in the wonders of the world around us.
We are a Title I school and many students come from hard working families that struggle financially. Our classroom environment and activities that were available to each child every day provided an opportunity for equal access and understanding of care and respect for our materials and especially for each other.
My Project: There have been many challenges during this time of virtual school. One of the most disappointing has been the inability for my VPK students to participate in the many hands on opportunities that would have been provided. Although they have watched experiments on the computer, they lost the opportunity to engage first hand in the wonder and excitement of the world around them.
It is my goal to amaze and excite my students by providing them materials for experiments they can complete in their homes.
We have watched caterpillars become butterflies. We have watched beans sprout. We have watched carrot tops grow leaves. With this project, we will do!
[Here’s what Mrs. Bopst wants to give each child: Rainbow Cottage Kids Garden Kit – Rainbow Cottage Model Kit for Kids with Indoor Garden, Includes Flower and Vegetable Seeds, Peat Pellets, Activity Guide, and More]
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
DonorsChoose.org has wrapped up their special coronavirus relief effort to help teachers in highest poverty areas send educational materials to students who are trying to learn from home, with over $11.77 million raised. They’re directing further donations to individual projects tagged “distance learning”, like those we’ve been bringing you here.
When Coronavirus closed schools across the country, teachers needed to get supplies in the hands of students at home to keep them learning, especially in our country’s highest-need communities.
The impact so far
Thank you to all of the generous donors who have supported this program so far: Over 10,000 individuals and our corporate and foundation partners, including Google.org, Bill and Melinda Gates, General Motors, Chevron, 3M, Equitable Foundation, Neukom Family Foundation, Samsung, The Pershing Square Foundation and the Employees of Pershing Square Capital Management, Chris and Crystal Sacca, Theresia Gouw, Reese Witherspoon and the Draper James team, Townsend Press, Lightbay Capital, Horace Mann, Oak Foundation, Burton Family Foundation, Arnold & Winnie Palmer Foundation, and the Perry and Donna Golkin Family Foundation.
Over 9,000 teachers have already been connected with funding, like Mrs. Akowitz in Michigan:
“My students have been sending me pictures of the packages they’re receiving and have been overjoyed that I am still thinking about them even though we can’t be together. I am in the process of setting up a meeting with all of them so we can read one of the books I sent them together. They can’t wait. Thank you so much for helping me bring some joy to my students while I can’t be with them.”
Visit our blog for final stats and stories.
An ongoing need
You can continue to help teachers working to help their students learn from home by choosing a distance learning project.
DonorsChoose is a 501(c)3 nonprofit with Charity Navigator's highest 4-star rating. Visit our help center for details on how Keep Kids Learning works, or for more information on how we're responding to teachers impacted by coronavirus.
Corporations and foundations: interested in getting involved? Visit our Partnerships Center for more information.
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Our main project from last week was completed, with a big assist from our readers!
Mrs. Stroud’s incoming class of second graders in North Carolina will have spent the last 9 weeks of the school year learning from home, and this will likely continue into the new term. She knows they will need extra help to get up to speed to start second grade curriculum. Her project, Making the Connecting Flight Between First and Second Grade, will bring resources from a nationwide community of teachers to help the kids learn, whether at home or at school.
She writes: Thank you for your contributions to our second grade classroom! We are excited to start the new school year even though learning will look differently than when we left. We are thrilled about our new online resources! Your donations will help us stock our remote learning library of materials. Thanks again!
Our Dollars at Work
Continuing our rummage in the TIP attic: In April of 2017, Ms. Harvey was in her first year teaching kindergarten in South Carolina. She had few resources, and needed some math manipulatives to help her students develop a more intuitive grasp of number concepts, and we were able to help. The project was Kinder Mathematicians! (More photos at the link.)
Thank you so much for donating to my Kinder Mathematicians project! I am so grateful for your donations because without them, my kindergartners would not be able to have experience with hands on materials during our math time. We have been using our unifix cubes to learn how to count. We touch each cube and say one number, building my students' one to one correspondence. We have used the number line chart to count and to learn how numbers increase as we move on the number line. We have used the 3D shapes to learn how 3D shapes stack, roll, and slide. We have used the ten frames to learn to see how numbers can be in an organized arrangement. My students LOVE the ten frame rug! It it a great way for students to see ten frames in action, and they get to be a part of the ten frame!
When my students saw all of our new math materials, they were so excited! They could not wait to begin using our new manipulatives. The unifix cubes are the students favorite. During their free choice time, they are able to use the unifix cubes to build towers and make patterns. I love seeing the students new creations whenever they are using the unifix cubes!
Currently, we are using the unifix cubes a lot to count and build numbers. I am so excited to see how my students' number sense will continue to grow because of our new math manipulatives. I know that you have helped them become Kinder Mathematicians!
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 832! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.org.