Donor's Choose Walkthrough

This school year has been a new adventure in my career.  New school, new grade, new programs- eek!  I went on a massive supply hunt over the summer to get myself and my classroom ready.  I explored Craigslist, Savers and other thrift stores, Freecycle (if you don't know what that is get on Google now!), and a few donation sites (Adopt-A-Classroom and Donors Choose). 

I put a project up on Donors Choose to help get leveled readers for Daily 5.  Here's what I learned from the experience:

You start of with a certain number of points.  Projects cost different amounts depending on the type of project you are submitting (supplies, author visit, trip).  If you are putting up a supply project, the point cost depends on where you are getting the supplies, more points for using a vendor not in the "mall." 

Once submitted, Donor's Choose will approve (or not) your project.  It will not post instantly.

If this is your first project you will get a special code for friends and family to get donations doubled up to $50.  Unfortunately, you can not donate to your own project.    The code is only good for about a week so post it everywhere!

It is important that you quickly post on your project wall thanking each donor.  This is used to determine how many points you earn toward your next project.

Any donations over $50 will require a personal thank you card from your class.

When your project is funded Donor's Choose will send the items to your school.  These items technically belong to your school now.  There is a notice on the DC website explaining this policy.

You will be required to upload 6 photos of your students using the materials.  There is a release form on the DC website.  My recommendation is to get these release forms out to parents while you are still waiting for funding. The form says something about the teacher either having a funded project or working on a project, so it shouldn't confuse the parents if you start early (although, we all know that this will happen anyway). 

Using Donor's Choose was fairly easy to do.  I was able to get a few sets of books for my Just Right Daily 5 baskets.  The part that I didn't like was how much DC added on for their costs.  However, considering that there were a few donations from strangers it balanced out.

Here's the link to my project (it was funded in about a week!):
http://www.donorschoose.org/project/building-a-classroom-library-to-build-a/874092/

Good luck!

Seuss here, Seuss there. Seuss EVERYWHERE!

This week, one of the things my class of Kinders learned was that, Ms. C loves Seuss books!  We did not stop our Seuss fun with Read Across America Day.  Rather, that was part of our kick off.  Here is a little of how we celebrated Seuss.  (Still working on remembering to take more photos, you may have to use a little imagination.)

My favorite Seuss book of all is Hooray for Diffendoofer Day.  This book was written by Dr. Seuss, Jack Prelutsky and Lane Smith.  I emphasize to every class I read this to, that Jack Prelutsky and Lane Smith helped write this book by using Dr. Seuss's notes and thinking like Dr. Seuss.  Doing this sets the stage to have your students work like Dr. Seuss as Jack Prelutsky and Lane Smith did. 

My students illustrated a teacher that they think could teach at Diffendoofer School.  Lane Smith and Jack Prelutsky had to create additional teachers (who teach silly things like smelling and laughing) to fill in Dr. Seuss's notes.  After students illustrated his/her teacher, they named the teacher and what that teacher teaches.  Of course, in true Seuss style, the subjects and teacher names rhymed!

How do you celebrate Seuss without a little science experiment?  Seuss and science?  It's true- it's not the first connection people usually make.  Until you remember about a little boy named Bartholomew Cubbins from the Kingdom of Didd, where Oobleck rained from the sky.  First, I showed my class the process of how to use water and an eye dropper to slowly add water to the cornstarch.  We determined that a small plastic spoon (from the cafeteria) full of cornstarch took 5 eye droppers full of water to make Oobleck.  Students each mixed a cup of Oobleck and were given time to play with the substance.  I really wish I had photos of what the tables (and let's be honest, the floor) looked like afterward!  Since the Oobleck in this story resembles more of a green silly putty we made silly putty later in the week.  Students used the ball of silly putty to make letters during Word Work (Seuss inspired Daily 5).

We used There's a Wocket in my Pocket for non-sense rhyming.  The first part of this project was to create a creature who rhymed with 'pocket.'  Students were given a half sheet of paper for this.  After coloring the creature students cut out the creatures.  They were given the direction that it was OK to cut around small parts (we have been working a lot to cut right on the lines).  Completed creatures were traded for a pocket on which they completed the sentence: "There's a __________ in _____________'s pocket."  Student glued pockets on three sides, leaving the top open.  Students then decorated the paper where the pocket was attached.  Later, I taped string to the back of the creature and then inside the pocket.  The  projects were displayed with the creatures peeking out of the pockets.  

As for The Cat in the Hat, we took on two projects.  First, we made hats by using cut outs of the cat's hat and attaching it to a band of red construction paper.  Students used a red crayon to create a red and white AB pattern on the hats.  Simple and Kinder-cute!

Our second project was for math.  Students were provided with a blank hat cutout (which they cut out), two different colors of paper (which they selected), and a form for writing an addition equation.  Students cut strips from the two colors of paper and arranged an AB pattern on the hat.  Students then counted the number for each color and put the number in each of the boxes, writing the total in the last box.  To help associate the numbers with their work, students outlined the boxes in the coordinating color. 

We also used our buddy time last week to read Seuss books.  Our big buddies were great sports tackling all those rhymes!

We did so much Seuss that I may have missed an activity or two!  I hope some of these ideas are useful for someone.  

 

Happy Seuss'ing!