Back to School with DonorsChoose.org - Year 4
For the fourth year in a row, a portion of sales during our Back to School sale will go towards helping fund projects through DonorsChoose.org. Over the past three years, you helped fund and complete over 70 classroom projects. Whether you take advantage of [$20 tees] or the [Spend $60+, get a library market tote free] promotion, you will be positively impacting the lives of students and teachers in the United States!
What is DonorsChoose.org? Their mission statement is: "We make it easy for anyone to help a classroom in need, moving us closer to a nation where students in every community have the tools and experiences they need for a great education." Since it's founding in 2010, teachers at 80% percent of all the public schools in America have created project requests, and 3,314,426 people have donated $718,048,117 to projects that inspire them. Over 29,083,131 students have received books, art supplies, field trips, technology, and other resources that they need to learn.
Here are some of the projects you helped fund through your Out of Print purchase in 2017.
Grades 3-5, California ... "Thank you so much for the new books. We are so excited to have these books for our upcoming read aloud. We absolutely love to read and can't wait to hear this story. By having these books, we will be able to analyze characters and settings, be able to make predictions, and find the sequence of events. We will be able to practice a lot of reading skills from this novel. In our class, when we are all reading, we love hearing the stories as well as reading it on our own. Thank you so so much for helping my class get these books." -Ms. Kong, teacher
Grades 6-8, Connecticut ... "Thank you for supporting our classroom! Many of my students enjoy reading this year and I love being able to provide them with books that they enjoy. These titles were requested by my students and even students who claim they do not like to read have been able to find something they are interested in reading.
Reading is not a chore in my classroom. It is something that we do to be taken on an adventure or to learn more about our interests. Being a reader myself, I want all my students to enjoy reading. Although we have required books we read as class, I want my students to be excited to choose their own books to read. These novels are helping me give this opportunity to all my students. It is incredibly important that students read on a consistent basis. Reading skills are utilized across subject areas and will become important later in college or the workforce. Providing books students want to read is the first step in fostering these important skills.
My students cannot wait to start reading the books! It will be difficult to keep them on the shelves because I have students already creating a wait list for some of the titles! Thank you again for encouraging reading in our classroom!" -Ms. Ketterl, teacher
Grades 3-5, Oklahoma ... "Thank you, Thank you!!!! Your generosity means more to me and my students than words can express. Third grade is such a crucial grade for reading instruction, and your donation to this project just made my job a little easier. The love of reading is not something that all children innately have. To be honest, reading is not too high on a lot of children's "fun things to do" list. One of the many hats I wear as a teacher is the responsibility to ignite the desire to read in every student I am entrusted with. The best way I know to do that is to model a passion for reading coupled with bringing each book to life in my classroom.
Using small group instruction, each group will now be afforded the opportunity to choose the book their group reads together. Your donation literally placed a diverse selection of literature into their young hands! The students read, discuss, and create art filled reenactments of their selected books together. They delve into their favorite characters from these books and are able to experience historical achievements, heartbreaking situations, good old fashion adventures, and the value of friendship all while in the comfort of their classroom reading nook!
In less than a month, five of my girls have finished the entire Mercy Watson collection your donations helped purchase! During their quest to gobble up every printed word about their beloved Mercy, these girls created a lasting friendship as well. Although in the same classroom, these young ladies had never voluntarily spent any time together. However, with this new book series at their fingertips, the girls discovered that they each had something in common with the others......their love for Mercy Watson!
Thank you again for your generosity to our project. You have helped bring back, and in some cases ignite, the love of reading in my third grade classroom. No words can ever express how valuable this truly is. The next time you pick up a book to read and begin your own journey, smile and know that because of your donation one of my students is embarking on their own adventure." -Mrs. Laymon, teacher
Our $20 tees plus Spend $60+, get a library market tote FREE promotion runs from Thursday, August 23 through Monday, August 27.