Hey everyone! It's been a while since my last post- but as all teachers know, the end of the year can be a bit chaotic. This year I will be teaching Kindergarten in an add-on classroom. I am discovering certain benefits to being an add-on class. One, is that you have a smaller class size than teachers did the year before (across the grade level we are going from 25 to less than 20 per class). Another, is that you don't have to go crazy going through piles of stuff the last teacher left in the room. Really, it's a great opportunity to design your space. The downside to being the add-on class is that you don't have the supplies left by the teacher from the year before (and all the other teachers before him/her). With a small budget I have turned to Freecycle for my manipulative toys (Legos, K'nex and such), art supplies and picture books. While I am collecting donations on a fairly regular basis, it's just not working to get the books that I need. Mainly because I need leveled readers to be able to facilitate a Daily 5 approach.
So, what do you do when you know your shelves are empty and your budget is tiny? First I checked out Donors Choose but the logistics of the site are complicated and I did not like the way your project is funded/ possibly not funded. Someone I know who writes grants for 'small budget' schools recommended Adopt A Classroom. Setting up an Adopt A Classroom profile was quick and simple. The site has options to create projects with set goals or to just be available for donations. I set up a project to build my library (currently non-exsistant). I posted my project link to Facebook (and option available on my Adopt A Classroom profile) and quickly received two emails notifying me of two donations made to my classroom. All donated funds must be spent through a list of vendors on the site. Let me tell you- the vendor list is great! It is loaded with sites that I order from for my classroom on my own. I have not purchased anything yet but the site gave me the option to spend my two donations immediately after they came in, no waiting forever like at another site.
There is an HTML script on the Adopt A Classroom profile to add a donation box to my blog- I tried various ways to get the box to work but was unsuccessful, so far at least. I would love some tips if anyone has any!
Check out the link to my profile to get an idea of what guests will see. Hey, while you're there feel free to make a donation- every dollar helps!
Ms C's Adopt A Classroom page
Just in case the link doesn't work for you, copy and paste this:
http://www.adoptaclassroom.org/classroomdonation/results_teacher.aspx?ClassroomID=163680&schoolID=59090
Good luck to anyone else searching for supplies!
