This week, we’re helping a North Carolina elementary school get some hands-on activities to help with reading, and a Texas high school get a supplementary biology book. 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, math, and literacy projects for public schools in low-income neighborhoods. As always, our conduit is DonorsChoose, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation that facilitates tax-deductible donations to specific, vetted projects in public schools.
Today’s good news is, we’ve made such great progress on this project that it’s moving up here this week, to make way for another one with a longer-term goal in position #2!
This never-before-funded North Carolina elementary-school librarian works with pre-K - second grade students each week, and needs some hands-on activities to go along with their story times.
PROJECT #1
Resources: Help me give my students a chance to build their reading skills while reinforcing vocabulary they hear during story times in my library.
Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households.
Location: North Drive Elementary School, Goldsboro, North Carolina
Total: $584.98
Still Needed: $152.48 Completed, thank you! Please consider project #2 below.
Project description by Ms. Fischer: My Pre-K - 2nd students have library time every week. Library for students this age can't be just sitting and reading books for 45 minutes! Instead I use this time to read stories and get them excited about words and reading.
Hands on activities are always a big hit with them, especially the extra wiggly ones!The magnetic letters and boards will give them a fun way to practice everything from their names to vocabulary from story time.
The tangrams and shapes help them learn critical thinking, shape and pattern recognition, which are also key skills for reading.
These materials will give them a chance to do something active and fun that also reinforces key skills later. It's another way to make them look forward to library time and to learning to read.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Sets of pattern blocks much like these are another item requested in this project.
You might remember that, back in October, this supplemental biology book was requested by another high school. Sometimes, an item appears in a project and then suddenly there are dozens of requests for it. I don’t know if that’s what’s happening here, but it certainly looks like a worthy book to become popular!
Mrs. Gueller’s school is a bit west of Corpus Christi, along the Gulf Coast.
PROJECT #2
Resources: Help me give my students a resource that they will enjoy to read.
Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households.
Location: Robstown High School, Robstown, Texas
Total: $464.82
Still Needed: $435.41 $400.41
Project description by Mrs. Gueller: “Everything You Need to Ace Biology In One Big Fat Notebook” is a book that breaks down hard to understand Biology concepts into easy to read concepts. The visuals in this book assist the kids in learning hard to understand concepts. I used this book in tutoring with Special Needs tutoring and it worked! I would love to have more access to these books. I would like to put a book under each student's desk so they can use it whenever they are not on their Chromebook or when they need to research more stuff on the topic we are covering. Please consider helping me with a reading resource.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Workman Publishing has always been known for “quirky but useful” books, and it seems like these are no exception. Here’s what the company has to say about this whole series.
Our main project from last week was completed, with plenty of help from our readers and a rare 3x match!
Project #1, Building Our Library!: Mrs. Johnson wanted to bring books with diverse characters to her North Carolina third grade.
She writes: Thank you so much for your generous donations! I'm so excited to add these books to our classroom, and I know my students are going to love them. The books will definitely help to build up our non-fiction section as well as give the students some fiction books with some great characters they love!
We also have a note from a late-completed project from last time!
PreK Back to School: Ms. Timms teaches pre-K in a city just south of Dallas, and needed some supplies, particularly math “file folder games”.
She writes: I am so very happy you are funding my project. My class is a Title 1 school and will benefit from having these supplies. Children are our future and if you live in a Title 1 district every little bit helps. Our class will be proud to use these items in our classroom. A BIG THANK You from PreK 4.
DonorsChoose has developed the designation Equity Focus Schools to describe some schools that submit projects. They meet two criteria: at least 50% of students are Black, Latinx, Native American, Pacific Islander, or multiracial, and at least 50% of students qualify for free or reduced price lunch, the standard measure for school economic need. You can read more at the link about their efforts to address the longstanding inequity in education. |
Founded in 2009, The Inoculation Project seeks to fund science, math, and literacy projects in public school classrooms and libraries. Our conduit is DonorsChoose, 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 projects 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 1063! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.