This week, we’re helping a first-grade teacher’s reading project in Mississippi and a third-grade teacher’s physics project in Los Angeles. 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.
Mrs. Ricard teaches first grade in a small Mississippi Gulf Coast city, just west of the Alabama border. She’s hoping for a big set of the “Fly Guy” stories her students love to read.
PROJECT #1
Resources: Help me give my students Fly Guy book sets for reading his adventures.
Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households.
Location: Moss Point Kreole Primary School, Moss Point, Mississippi
Total: $169.49
Still Needed: $169.49 $80.08
Project description by Mrs. Ricard: I am a first-grade teacher at a public school. My students are excited about learning and want to excel in school. I have a large range of learning abilities in my classroom. My students come from diverse backgrounds with a variety of needs.
My students are sweet and they are excited and ready to learn, explore, and take on the world.
Boy meets fly — and so begins a beautiful friendship. Hi! Fly Guy is the first in Tedd Arnold’s funny series about the amazing and irrepressible Fly Guy. The book provides an ideal opportunity to teach young students how to be friends and to deal with the emotions that come with having friends.
My students love Fly Guy!
In this series of books, a fly and a boy become friends. The boy, Buzz, comes upon this fly by accident. Buzz's father does not think a fly can be a good pet but Buzz and Fly Guy prove him wrong. Buzz and Fly Guy have adventures galore. Throughout the series, the two friends learn about each other and learn about emotions. My project will help my students understand their feelings through the emotions that Buzz and Fly Guy have as they learn about each other.
In the book "Shoo, Fly Guy" Fly Guy returns home to discover that Buzz has gone on a picnic without him. Sad and hungry, Fly Guy takes off in search of his favorite food and his friend Buzz. The students learn about sadness and happiness after Fly Guy finds his friend.
In another book, "I Spy Fly Guy' Buzz loses Fly Guy When they play hide-and-seek, Fly Guy hides in his favorite place — the garbage can. But then the garbage man drives away with the garbage and Fly Guy, too!
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Here’s one of the stories from this popular series.
We made great progress last week on this larger project! A Los Angeles third-grade teacher’s students need a chance to design and build model vehicles and learn some physics.
PROJECT #2
Resources: Help me give my students the Lakeshore Design & Play Cars and STEAM Kits to develop their engineering skills and learn about balanced and unbalanced forces.
Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households.
Location: Euclid Avenue Elementary School, Los Angeles, California
Total: $438.78
Still Needed: $214.78 Completed, thank you! Please consider project #1, above!
Project description by Ms. Barajas: My students love to explore and learn how things work! With these STEAM kits, they will more easily build model cars, boats, and planes.
My third graders will learn about engineering, technology, and science through different hands-on activities!
They will better understand how different parts function and work together. They will use the models they build to conduct investigations based on their own questions. Through different experiments, they will also learn about balanced and unbalanced forces. As a final project, they will design their own model cars, boats, and/or planes using other materials in an effort to improve the original designs.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Here’s another physics video from this third-grade-level science series, relevant to what Ms. Barajas hopes to cover.
Our main project from last week was completed, thanks to a big boost from our readers!
Project #1, Evanston's Learning Garden: Ms. Wagner wanted her Cincinnati elementary school students to have the tools they’d need to care for the school garden this spring.
She writes: We are amazed and inspired by all the support we received to develop our garden and outdoor learning space here at Evanston. This will enrich our children's experiences in math, science, and language, and grow our ecological awareness at every grade level. We are so excited to hit the ground running in the springtime and we couldn't have done it without you!
| 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 1078! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.
