This week, we’re helping a third grade in Houston working on telling time, and a Memphis preschool teacher making binders of interactive materials to help her teach her class remotely. 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.
First, I’d like to make sure everyone knows that DonorsChoose is having a special day this Tuesday, December 1, for “Giving Tuesday”. All projects on the site that are not currently matched will have 2x matching funds available for that one day only! If you have in mind to make some more charitable donations before the year ends, you can make your money go twice as far by donating on that particular day.
For today, though, we have two other opportunities to double your gift!
The first is from a Houston teacher with a mixed remote and in-person class of English learners, needing a clever clock whose dial pops off and becomes a number line. The offer of 2x matching funds is coming from its manufacturer, hand2mind: Trusted by teachers for more than 50 years, hand2mind has created engaging, classroom-tested materials that empower students to learn by doing.
MAIN PROJECT
Resources: Help me give my students a class set of hand2mind clocks to help them learn about time.
Economic need: Nearly all students from low‑income households
Location: Sam Houston Elementary School, Houston, Texas
Total: $315.89 (2x matching funds from hand2mind)
Still Needed: $315.89 Completed — thanks! Please see next project.
Teacher’s Comments from Mrs. Carrero:
My Students: My third grade dual language students live in an economically disadvantaged community. Ninety-two percent of students from our school come from low income families. All my students are Spanish speakers learning English as their second language. Like every other kid, my students dream of becoming great global citizens with wonderful careers in their future and I believe that every single one of them can.
When I see my students I see all the potential they have to be a very successful citizen of the 21st century.
Even though they are facing many challenges with this coronavirus pandemic, they are very enthusiastic about learning new things. Some are continuing to learn from home digitally while others are returning to Face-to-Face. I teach virtually and Face-to-Face and my all my students are very engaged in the learning, even the ones that are on the other side of the screen. I admire my students because they are motivated to become better people and to achieve all their goals.
My Project: Elapsed time is always a hard concept for the students to understand. Even though I use different methods for teaching this concept, my students always struggle. It's hard for them to visualize the passing of time on a number line.
Having these clocks for the student to manipulate will help them understand this concept better.
This clocks can turn into a number line which is awesome because the student can observe how a clock can be seen as a number line also. This will help them visualize the elapsed time better. My student will greatly benefit from having that hands-on experience when learning about time. They need that concrete learning first before the abstract.
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
Then, we have this substantial project from a teacher of at-risk preschoolers who are not yet attending school in person. She has conceived an ambitious project to prepare and deliver binders of learning materials, including a section to help parents, along with the pencils, crayons, markers, and other tools the students can use to do their work. If you have to pick just one of these two projects today, I suggest picking this one, because its time is growing short. If we give it a boost, we may be able to attract other donors to help us do the heavy lifting.
The 2x matching funds here come from PNC Grow Up Great®: Extending the reach of innovative, high-quality resources and experiences in pre-K and Head Start classrooms advances the program’s mission of inspiring great futures for young children.
LONG-TERM PROJECT
Resources: Help me give my students a meaningful virtual learning experience. I want to be able to send the supplies they will need home so they can be successful virtually.
Economic need: Nearly all students from low‑income households
Location: Highland Oaks Elementary School, Memphis, Tennessee
Total: $648.15 (2x matching funds from PNC Grow Up Great®)
Still Needed: $548.15 Completed — thank you! See you next week!
Teacher’s Comments from Ms. McCoy:
My Students: The students I serve are at risk preschoolers. This means that they are projected to start Kindergarten significantly behind their peers socially, emotionally, and/or academically. That's why the service I provide to my students is so important.
My little ones come to me so excited to learn and experience everything Pre-K has to offer and I want to ensure, that even virtually, they get the most out of this school year from the very start!
My Project: My goal is to provide my students materials they can be used NOW (while we meet virtually) and provide items for them to use LATER when it is safe for us return to the classroom.
Pre-K students learn best through hands on activities.
I want to use these resources to make interactive binders. Every child will get a binder with three sections - Literacy, Math, and Parent Resources. The students can use these binders for hands on activities while I’m teaching them emergent writing skills, phonics, and math skills via the computer. The card stock will make the pages durable to withstand use by four year olds and page protectors will be used to make some pages like name tracing/writing reusable as dry erase boards and the dividers will help parents and student navigate the binder. The supply kits will consist of pencils, pencil grippers to help with proper pencil grip since I won’t be there to hold their hands, age appropriate scissors they snap back until the kiddos learn to do it them selves, glue sticks, dry erase markers, crayons that parents can pick up for their child to use during our virtual lessons. I don’t want access to materials to be a hindrance to virtual learning. The students in the program I teach for are at risk preschoolers. I want to give them every opportunity to be successful "NOW N' LATER" virtual or not!
Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference!
These ingenious little devices to teach proper pencil grip are one of the items requested.
Both of our projects from last week were completed, thanks to our readers along with other donors!
Mr. Johnson’s first DonorsChoose project for his Georgia elementary class will provide them with “NumberBots”, adorable little digit figures who transform into tiny robots and make learning math fun. The project was Manipulatives Make Math Magnificent!
He writes: Wow! My first project just got funded! How exciting! Thank you so much. I am a lover of math and I know my students will enjoy these materials. This is very exciting. The children will now have some math games to assist them along with the curriculum. Thank you, seriously for your support.
And, elsewhere in Georgia, Ms. Chambers needed a cart outfitted with facilities normally found in a classroom, to help her teach her pre-K class remotely from her home. The project was Roll and Go!
She writes: Thank you so much for your generous donation, our project is now fully funded. The impact this cart will have on our virtual learning/teaching is priceless!! I can't wait to put it to use. Thanks again for taking an interest in the educational journey of my awesome group of scholars, you rock!!
Our Dollars at Work
Back in July 2019, we helped Ms. Almeida’s El Paso elementary school class. She wanted a chance for them to learn about coding using Ozobots, little programmable robots that are suitable for beginners. The project was Ozobots for Coding! (More photos at the link.)
Thank you so much for your kind donations; your donation has made a huge impact on the way my students learn. We have integrated technology into our daily routines; we have used them for back to school, vocabulary review, fractions, life cycles, and much more. Kids get super excited when they get a chance to play with them, they often say it doesn't even feel like learning. This has even made some of my students (even though they're little) to start thinking about a career in engineering and coding.
Thank you again so much for your kind donation. Thank you for supporting students and teachers; we appreciate you very much.
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 862! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.org.