Changing the way we see

Our young students do best when shown an example of the work that is to be completed. Doing so can sometimes be a daunting task as most of the time I hear, “But I can't see!” Hopefully our days of frustration are over! Thanks to a wonderful webpage based program called Donors Choose, my kids will now be able to see my examples from a large projected picture!

Donorschoose.org is a website open to teachers to sign up and request items for his/her classroom. The items can be something as simple as dry erase markers to laptops and more. The website is designed so that anyone can access the site and make a donation to any project he/she wishes. For example, this summer I posted a project and asked for a document camera. A document camera is a piece of technology that when paired with a projector can show what I am working on to a large screen for all of my students to see. The website then helps me to promote awareness of this project. At any time anyone could log on and make a donation to this project, from giving $1 to fully funding the project, which in this case was almost $900. As you can see with a price tag like that, this was not something I could just purchase myself for my room. It was my pleasure to receive an email this past week notifying me my project had been fully funded! This meant that someone, or some company in this case, had given enough money that my classroom could receive our document camera. I was thrilled! I sincerely appreciate DirecTV, which fully funded this project for my classroom.

It is wonderful to know that these resources are available for us, and are here to help. I am grateful donorschoose.org created such an amazing program for teachers to be able to receive such generous donations. I cannot wait for this wonderful new piece of equipment to arrive and to see the look on the children's faces when they are able to see and follow along with exactly what I am showing!

If you would like to take a look at some of the other projects on donorschoose.org, either for the Red Oak Community School District or any other, you can find the link on the PTO website or at www.donorschoose.org

Much obliged,
SueAnn Crouse
Red Oak Inman Primary Kindergarten Teacher