This week, we’re helping two elementary school classrooms: an Alabama class needs some tools to help with their math skills, and a Virginia class needs books they’ll enjoy reading. 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.
Both of this week’s projects have a special designation from DonorsChoose:
Celebrate Black Teachers and Students
This project is part of the Black History Month celebration because it supports a Black teacher or a school where the majority of the students are Black.
Mrs. Simpson’s early-grades Alabama students (that’s all we know, probably for good reason) need tools to help them learn beginning math skills.
PROJECT #1
Resources: Help me give my students different math manipulatives for hands-on learning as they strengthen their counting and number recognition skills.
Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households. Also a Celebrate Black Teachers and Students project.
Location: Alabama
Total: $168.11
Still Needed: $168.11 Completed, thank you! Please consider project #2, below.
Project description by Mrs. Simpson: My students come to school with little number knowledge. Many of my students don't know how to count to big numbers or number recognition. The best way that they can learn these skills is through hands-on practice. These different math manipulatives will help my students count different things and recognize different numbers repeatedly.
Please help me enhance their counting and number recognition skills with these new counting manipulatives.
My students will enjoy using the cubes and counters to help them with their number skills. They can learn how to touch different objects and snap them together as they count them. For my students who already know their number skills, they will be able to use these manipulatives to start adding and subtracting different numbers.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
A review of many ways of using one of the requested items, Unifix cubes, to teach early mathematics concepts.
Project #2 is a very ambitious one, but we have already, since last week, seen it go from almost $700 needed to its current amount, and it still has lots of time remaining! The key is that our activity causes donors other than ourselves to see it, so I believe we can keep nudging it and getting additional donors aboard to help.
Mrs. Henderson is drawing on two lists of distinguished books: Virginia Readers' Choice is a project of the Virginia State Literacy Association, and America’s Battle of the Books is a “voluntary reading incentive program” that offers grade-targeted reading lists and assists schools to put on a fun tournament/game show-style competition for readers.
PROJECT #2
Resources: Help me give my students access to books from the Virginia Readers' Choice list and the upcoming Battle of the Books for Norfolk, VA.
Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households. Also a Celebrate Black Teachers and Students project.
Location: Jacox Elementary School, Norfolk, Virginia
Total: $744.25
Still Needed: $448.95 $250.26
Project description by Mrs. Henderson: I want to provide multiple copies of this year's selections from Virginia Readers' Choice and Battle of the Books to our students so they have the opportunity to participate in these programs. The Virginia Readers' Choice is a great venue for reading aloud in the classroom and Battle of the Books encourages students to collaborate and share knowledge.
This project will benefit students by providing access to quality literature and promoting reading as a life-long pleasure.
There are so many benefits to reading: expanding your worldview, building problem-solving skills, and improving memory and concentration. Plus, it's fun!
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Given the track record of successful children’s books being filmed, I was not even surprised to see that one of the requested books, Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library, had been a Nickelodeon movie in 2017.
Our main project from last week was completed, with considerable help from our readers!
Project #1, Mass, Friction, and Static!: Ms. Wood hoped to give her Fort Lauderdaie fifth-graders a few simple supplies to enhance their science lessons.
She writes: Thank you very much for the donations that helped fully fund this project! I am so excited to tell my students what fun items we have coming to use in our lessons. These items for hands-on activities make such a huge difference in their understanding of the science concepts they are exploring. My students are so wonderful and deserve the best. Thank you for being a part of our classroom.
We also have a project from the week before that was completed too late for the teacher’s note to make it into last week’s diary: Engaging in Hands-On Classroom Engineering: Ms. Barajas wanted her Los Angeles third grade students to be able to design and build model vehicles and learn some physics..
She writes: I am so grateful to you for your generous donations that helped fund this STEAM project for my class! Both of these Design and Play STEAM kits will provide our students the opportunity to learn through hands-on activities while using the engineering design process. Our students will be so excited to build, customize, and improve their model car, boat, and plane! Thank you for seeing the need to support elementary students in learning science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematical concepts. This project will undoubtedly inspire students to think about a career in one of these fields!
| 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 1081! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.
