8 Tips for teachers to get your Donors Choose project from launch to FUNDED!
Ever wondered about Donor's Choose but didn't try it? Here is how it works. Try it for yourself! It is great for teachers!
Help Us Support Public Art Classrooms in Need by Contributing to ‘Donors Choose’ Photo: Stock Photos from Billion Photos/Shutterstock At My Modern Met, we believe that art is a fundamental part of b
I will admit it: I’m obsessed with Donor’s Choose! I published my first project on September 5, 2011 during my first year of teaching. It was funded on February 2, 2012 by complete strangers. I still remember getting the e-mail in the middle of the day at school, the e-mail that said my project was ... Read More about Donor’s Choose Tips
With the money from Ripple, DonorsChoose.org was able to fulfill 35,647 requests in all, from 28,210 teachers at 16,561 public schools.
Raise your hand if you've ever tried to get a Donors Choose project funded. Now, raise your hand if you've ever wanted to start a p...
Aloha friends! Spring is in the air and my little munchkins are starting to get antsy! I have had to tighten up the reigns in the classroom and we need to really stick to those routines to keep everyone on track. I hope things are a bit calmer in your classrooms! I just wanted to share my latest Donor's Choose project that was funded recently. I love it so much!! My new kidney table from Lakeshore. I have needed this table for so long and it was finally funded in the last 30 days of the project! The parents in my classroom were very supportive and I received almost half of the funding in the first week when I posted it in December. After that, my project sat untouched for a few months. I sent out emails to friends and family and that raised a bit more, but still had a lot left on the project. Now that I am doing guided reading and math groups, having a comfortable spot for my students was so important and I really needed more space. I put in a large donation myself to get closer to my goal, but it was still too much for me to pay all on my own. Then I discovered Caring Classrooms. I had heard a little bit about their Facebook page, but had never really looked into it. I am so glad I did! Basically you go to the Caring Classrooms page on Donor's Choose. You donate to projects that are on the page. It can be as little as a $1 donation. Once you have donated then you can enter to have your project placed on their page. It gets tons of exposure and most likely will get funded. Well, I decided to give it a try. I went to their Donor's Choose page {click Here} and chose a few projects that I wanted to help fund. I donated to each one and then posted on their Facebook page. That was it. The following week I found out that my project had been chosen to be placed on their page! They announced it on Facebook on their Sunday Fund-Day post and it was fully funded in a few hours!! I can't tell you how happy and excited I was that my project was funded so quickly! I gave a little and received so much in return! Teachers helping other teachers to get their projects funded. Laura Candler from Teaching Resources is one of the gurus behind this great idea. Swing by her website to find out all the details on getting your project funded. {Click Here} Just a few more picks of our new table in action. Writing help from our Sped teacher. My students love going to the table and sitting in the "Teacher's Chair". I am so thankful to Donor's Choose for helping me to add wonderful teaching tools and resources to my classroom. The Caring Classrooms Community has now added a new way to help get our projects funded and into our classrooms. Mahalo!!
Who has used Donors Choose? Who has never taken that first step? Let me make it easy for you. Donors Choose doesn't have to be difficult, and it's not scary. Here are the basic steps: 1. Go too www.donorschoose.org 2. Click "New Project" 3. If you have a "campaign code", enter it at the bottom of the screen where it says "Got a campaign code?" 4. Fill in the next screen about your students (Who page) - once you've done it, it saves for future projects as well. 5. Go shopping, using their links on the What page (Amazon things need to be Amazon prime), lots more other options too. I mainly stick with Amazon since it's fast and easy to do returns if needed. 6. Fill out the Why page about the project. They have text boxes to fill in with a specific word count. 7. Review everything and submit.. you'll get an email to let you know when it's live. Helpful things to do to help it get funded: *Send the link to your social media pages, so many people want to help your classroom. *Send the link to your classroom families, so many families want to help your classroom. *If you can, give a donation yourself - it will help get it jump started. After it's funded: Do the thank you package soon to earn points - photos, thank you notes, etc. I've used Donors Choose since December of 2012, and have added so many great resources and experiences to my classroom. Need an idea? Go wandering around their site or talk to your colleagues to spark ideas. Here are my past funded projects in case you want to see what I wrote, what I ordered, etc: *Class set of Frindle books *Class iPad *Class set of Who Was books *5 Boogie Boards (LCD Writing Tablets) *Class subscription to Scholastic News *7 Wobble Cushions *Class set of Bouncy Bands *Mentor Texts for Mentor Sentences Volume 2 *Mentor Texts for Mentor Sentences Volume 1 *Everything needed for an Owl Pellet Dissection experiment *Legos for STEM Enrichment *Class set of Wonder *Class set of Blood on the River *USA class rug *Everything needed for a GLOW Day *Class subscription for TIME for Kids I'm so thankful for everyone that has helped my students throughout the years. Large companies and individuals alike, friends, family, and strangers. It's such a powerful site. I now have to think of what I really want for next year... I'm thinking room transformation materials... We'll see! I hope this helps!
How to get started with Donors Choose- quick easy tips for getting projects funded
Donors Choose is an on-line charity that allows others to help students in need. Public school and Head Start teachers in the U.S. can submit projects to Donors Choose to for everything from basic classroom necessities to books, iPads, and more.
Donors Choose Project Reading to Luna
Do you have a classroom Wishlist? Materials you want in your classroom but don't have the funds to get?? Well, let me tell you about a wonderful way to get what you need without blowing your bank account! My Story in a Nutshell My classroom had 2 desktop computers at the beginning of the year. I decided we needed more technology-specifically 6 Kindle Fire HDX 7s. Enter DonorsChoose! How Did I Get Started? I contacted a few of my blogger friends who have funded projects through DonorsChoose. Some have received thousands of dollars worth of supplies! It's super easy to set up an account, and the website walks you through each step of your proposal! If you have any questions, I'll be happy to help you out! So, what did I ask for? 1 Kindle Fire HDX 7, stylus, and protective cover. The cost was $358. I have a goal of 6 Kindles for my classroom. So far, we have funded and are using the first 3. The fourth one is $119 away from funding, and the 5th and 6th projects are ready to submit. So excited to open our package! Kindles in Action! If you have ever thought of submitting a project to DonorsChoose, nows the time!! What do you have to lose? All projects are posted for 4 months, plenty of time to get needed donations. I sent a letter to my parents to let them know what was going on. I wanted to make sure every parent was aware of the project. I also wanted to ensure they knew EVERY dollar counted! Helpful Hints 1) Know what you want before you get started. 2) Keep your projects small. Break large projects into a few small proposals. 3) Get the word out! I posted the project on my facebook page and my class webpage, emailed parents, and sent out weekly project updates. We're even adding our projects to the school website! I would love to hear if you decide to give DonorsChoose a try! Now! On to the next Bright Idea!! My sweet friend, Christina from Sugar and Spice, has some great ideas for using Post-it notes to build fluency! Click on her button to keep hopping! Have a great week!!
Congratulations, your Donors Choose project has been funded! Well, now you're snapping pictures, getting it all set up, and thinking of having notes written to your donors. Let's cut down on time for you and use these thank you templates instead! This packet includes 3 formats of thank you notes...
If you had asked me one month ago if I thought I would have to be preparing for my students to spend 2 or more weeks at home learning their lessons instead of being in the classroom with me, I would have thought you were crazy. It just seems so surreal that something like this could happen. Yet, here we are. I was told three days ago that I would need to come up with a plan for 2 weeks of learning that my students would be able to do independently (read: without a teacher) and still further their education. Instantly, I was stressed out. This was uncharted territory and I was just unsure what to even do. And I figured if *I* didn't know what to do, *YOU* probably didn't either. Below is a list of all of the resources that I came up with to use with my students (and a few more too ;) ) To begin with, I created this calendar that I thought would be useful to my students and their parents to keep all of the learning organized. It is a basic checklist of all the things that the kids need to do while they are away from school. This calendar includes a mix of paper and digital resources for my kids. You can get an editable version of it here. Just plug in what works best for you students. I sent a hard copy of this with my students (since I knew we were going to be closing down) and a digital copy to their parents. I created a digital Book Summary Log for my kids. Now, usually I am not a book log kinda gal. I just find them to be less useful for my own instruction. However, with the kids being away, I can't discuss the books with them. So I made a very simple, easy to use Book Log. You can get a copy for yourself here. Wonderopolis.org is also a wonderful site that I am assigning my kids. There are articles on interesting and timely topics for the students to choose from. They will write a summary and make an inference on each article that they read. There are also many resources that are free on Scholastic.com due to the school closures. The kids will also be doing some SBAC practice on LumosLearning.com It is free and SO helpful to get the kids thinking about THE TEST (because, like it or not, the kids test almost immediately after we get back from the closure) For writing, I am assigning two of my digital Paragraph of the Week files for the kids. Since you are here on my blog, you probably need writing resources too. So here is Week 1 and Week 2 I am sending to the kids (if you would like the entire digital file for year round use, you can get that here.) Each of these weeks are formatted the same way that the kids use on paper. The only difference is that it is digital. Each day for homework, my students complete a spiral math page. I wanted to keep that continuity for them, so I converted two weeks to digital. If you teach 3rd grade, you can find it here. Your students should be able to do all of the skills here, as we are nearing the end of the year anyway. You can get 5th grade here (4th is on its way) In math, my kids are using xtramath.org (fact practice that is always free and always super useful!) My kids also LOVE Prodigy and Zearn. Both are free for students to use. For science, I assigned the kids several of the Mystery Science lessons. Mystery Science has put many of their lessons out for free because of these school closures. They are the same, exact lesson that you would get in the paid membership, which are amazing! Doug leads the kids through the science so they should have no problem learning the lessons and concepts. BrainPop has also set their service free for the duration of the school closures. It is a MUST USE site for all things social studies and math. You can sign up your class with this link here. Those are the things that I am assigning my students while they are away from school. A few others things (like our math book and Benchmark Advanced) are paper textbooks that I did not include in this list. My hope is that this list of things we are doing above sparks some ideas for you and makes this time a bit less stressful.
Tips for finding what you need on Laura Candler's Teaching Resources website.
My 1st year of teaching 5th grade, I was blessed to be a 1:1 iPad classroom. Every day involved tech-based learning and it was amazing how little paper we used! Last year, I moved cities/schools a…
Are you eager to begin guided reading but stuck because you don't even know where to get books? Maybe you have some, but are looking for more leveled readers for guided reading! This blog post gives you some places to start!
Today's Tech Tuesday is one of those "Why didn't I think of that?" ideas. Have a free online space where classroom teachers can post what project supplies they need. For example, maybe you are in need of a new printer or new reading rug or new set of Sharpie markers. Then, anyone from around the globe can visit Donors Choose and donate money to cover your entire supply list. Or contribute just a portion to it - from $1 on up! Giving is made simple, secure, and 100% of the monies donated are given directly to the classroom YOU choose as the donor. Registration for teachers is free and each teacher starts with three points in their account. That means, a teacher can submit three projects to Donors Choose to start. Apparently, this keeps the site from being overloaded. Then, as projects are funded, the teacher responds timely to Donors Choose emails and/or the teacher writes a thank you note to donors, the teacher can earn more points (and thus, submit more projects). I love that Donors Choose encourages writing thank you notes (for donors who give over $50)! Yay! Apparently, college professors cannot submit projects to Donors Choose. Nor can student teachers. You have to be working in a public school as a teacher (or librarian, guidance counselor, or something similar) to enroll in Donors Choose. If you just want to get a feel for Donors Choose, click on the "Search Projects" link and see what types of project supplies teachers are asking for. Neat-o, Jen
Dice, subitizing cards, center tubs, number lines – oh my! Our 1st grade math routines require so many resources and manipulatives. While Donors Choose, Go Fund Me accounts, and school funds are gr…
Scholastic found that in 2014, the average teacher spent $750 a year on his or her classroom during the previous school year. I read this number and laughed. While I am blessed with a pocket of cla…
I created these so my first graders could write a neat and organized thank you letter for our Donor's Choose projects. I have put four templates in for you to choose from. There is a simple version for pre-k and kindergarten. The second version is designed for first grade+ with more writing space. I...
Wish your Donors Choose was complete already? Keep reading this post for tips and tricks on funding classroom projects faster!
Aloha Friday friends. I bet some of you are hootin' and hollerin' because you are officially on Thanksgiving break. I am officially jealous! I have never had off the whole week for Thanksgiving, but I can't really complain. This was the first week in a LONG time that I have taught 5 full days! This post finds me happy and excited about having another Donor's Choose project funded!! My latest project was funded a few weeks ago and I just received all of my items. I was very fortunate to have it funded by Chevron Fuel Your School. They funded all projects in Hawaii for the month of October. You can check them out on Facebook if you want to learn more. So here is what I asked for - 4 new iPads and the cases to go along with them. Isn't that the most beautiful sight! I now have 8 iPads and they were all funded by Donor's Choose except one, which was given to us from Admin. The kids literally flipped when they saw them all! Of course the bright colored cases make them even more alluring for my 2nd graders. The cases are from Amazon.com and they are really cool. They are made of a thick foam like substance. Perfect for my tropical colored classroom! Now my only problem is organization. How to store and charge all of these and keep it looking decent. (If you didn't already notice the horrible wires everywhere, check the picture) So I headed back over the Amazon and found this storage unit. It has 8 slots for each iPad. It seems like it will be sturdy enough, especially with the thickness of the new cases. Now I just need this little gadget to get them all charging without a huge powerstrip! Ahhh, I could go on and on, but for now I am excited with what I have! With 8 iPads I can use 4 for our listening center and 4 for word work during Daily 5. During math rotations I have 6 students in each group, so they can use these to access our Reflex Math program. I can also use them for small groups to do research, and during my intervention block my higher kids can read KidBiz articles and play enrichment games. I am really excited to plan a lesson using QR codes. Once I get it all going I will share what we do. I posted this on my Facebook page yesterday and I had a few requests for apps to use in the class. I am working on a new post and will get it up soon. I would love to hear how you use iPads in your classroom and feel free to share any apps that you love!! I am always on the hunt for great apps! I am also linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching for her Five For Friday post. Go check out some other fun blogs!
Tips for finding what you need on Laura Candler's Teaching Resources website.
This week we have been working on cause and effect while reading Amelia Bedelia books. Thanks to Donors Choose, we have tons of her books to select
BeeBots are an amazing little robot that offers the perfect way to start coding with kindergarten and first grade kids. If you haven't had a chance to use this little guy you'll want to check out my video on how I use Bee Bots in my class. The hardest part about using BeeBots in your class is getti...
Dice, subitizing cards, center tubs, number lines – oh my! Our 1st grade math routines require so many resources and manipulatives. While Donors Choose, Go Fund Me accounts, and school funds are gr…
I hope everyone is having a relaxing and fun summer. Mine is already half over, the first three weeks flew by, and I'm hoping the next three weeks are nice and slow. It's time for part 5 of my 10 part series, Blog Backlog: Playing Catch Up. Today's post is about my Donor's Choose project and a really great resource I purchased from TpT. We all know that with Common Core a greater emphasis is placed on reading nonfiction, which, if your school is like mine, lacks in the nonfiction department. Actually, even before CC I had realized the need for more nonfiction, especially as literature sets. When I taught sixth grade I used Donors Choose to get a set of books on Ancient Egypt, which I donated to our library when I moved to fifth. So, this year I decided we needed a class set of books on the Revolutionary War. Last year during our study of the war I had some students in my class "rooting" for the Americans and booing the British. I wanted them to understand that there were always two (or more) sides to a war, and always different perspectives. So, I read them George vs. George by Rosalyn Schanzer, and that helped. This book is at a great reading level for 5th graders, and they loved the graphic novel-like illustrations. I decided this would make a great book to use as a lit study, and so I set up a project through Donors Choose. I am so grateful to all the donors that made it possible for us to get a class set of the books, they were a hit! To make our study even more meaningful I purchased this amazing resource from Head Over Heels for Teaching: Reading Nonfiction with Post-its. I picked out many of the pages from her resource that would coincide with the sections of George vs. George and made them all into a booklet. We glued on a copy of the front cover of GvG to make it official (sorry, forgot to take photos!). The students already had the 3"x 3" sticky notes that they use during Reading Workshop, but they needed the smaller ones for many of the activities. I found four packs of brightly colored ones at Dollar Tree and there were just enough in a stack for each student. Thanks Head Over Heels for Teaching for creating this super resource! I know I'll be using it even more this coming school year! And thank you Donors Choose for helping teachers get great resources and projects for our kiddos!
Thanks to Donors Choose and Amazon, I have finally updated and completed my art room library, at both schools! Now I have books for pr...
I hope everyone is having a relaxing and fun summer. Mine is already half over, the first three weeks flew by, and I'm hoping the next thre...
Over the past few years, I've been fortunate enough to have eight projects on DonorsChoose.org fully funded. I can't tell you how much these resources have transformed my classroom and teaching. If you aren't aware of DonorsChoose.org, it is a non-profit organization that allows classroom teachers to request materials for their students. After a project is posted, donors from all over the world can donate from $1 to any amount of their choosing. Some of the materials that my classroom has received include: a new listening center station, books on CD, reading pillows, a classroom carpet, math games, classroom laminator and laminating sheets, math manipulatives, magnetic letters and magnetic boards, and chapter books. It is absolutely amazing how willing people are to help and how generous they are. Through my experiences posting and promoting classroom projects, I've learned different ways to help a project become fully funded. Now, there are many other teachers who have had a lot more projects funded (some have even had over 100 projects funded- wow!) so this is just my two-cents! =) Okay, here are my 8 tips for getting a Donors Choose project funded for your classroom: 1. Post classroom projects that are $400 and under You will have the best chance at getting your project funded if it is under $400. If you need, for example, a new listening center, books on CD, and pillows for your students to sit on, you may want to consider posting the materials in separate projects. You could put the listening center and pillows together in one project and then request classroom pillows in another project. Now, there will be times when you would like to request a larger item for your classroom. Just know that teachers have the best success with smaller projects under $400. 2. Create a catchy title for your project When donors are scrolling through classroom projects on the website, the first thing they will most likely see is your project request's title. Make it an interesting one that will grab their attention! Instead of a title like "We Need Magnetic Letters" consider a catchier title such as "Letters Here, Letters There, Magnetic Letters Everywhere!" Use alliteration, humor, or sing-songy titles to attract attention to your project. 3. Write a great opening paragraph Along with your title, you will also want to make your opening paragraph interesting. Donors will see the first 2-3 sentences of your project request when browsing through projects. Just as we teach our students, you want to "hook" the reader and make them want to read on! Some ways to do this include asking a question or using an interesting quote that goes along with your project. For one of my projects, I requested math manipulatives and began with "When was the last time you used math? Chances are, you've used math sometime within the last hour. I want my students to be math problem solvers both in second grade and as they grow into adults." 4. Use an interesting picture on your homepage Another thing that donors will see while searching through projects is your classroom photo. You want to use a picture that represents your classroom and students. Be careful not to post a close-up picture of your students' faces though. I like to take a picture of my students holding up the letters that spell "Thank You Donors!" This helps donors see that the materials go to a real classroom, with real students, and that we are thankful for their consideration. 5. Be the first donation to your classroom project I've seen great success when I begin the donations by giving a small amount. This shows donors that you believe the materials are needed enough to donate yourself. Your donation doesn't have to be anything major- even a $5 donation will do! When leaving a comment on the donation page, I always write something like "I donated to this project because I believe my students are worth it! Plus, I know how much these materials will benefit my classroom." 6. Use automatic updates with Facebook A great way to get your project out there is to connect your Donors Choose teacher account with Facebook. Each time you post a new project, get a donation, or complete a project, it will be automatically posted to your Facebook account. You can do this by going to your account, and turning on the automatic updates with Facebook (at the top of your account page). 7. Promote, promote, promote! Don't be afraid to promote your project request. At first, I was very hesitant to share my project with my family, friends, and students' families. I still try to be cognisant of how often I promote my project- I don't want to drive anyone away by posting too much. But no one will know about your project if you don't get the word out there! I always send an email to my students' families when a project is first posted and include the link if they would like to make a donation. This makes it very easy for them. After the initial email, I don't send any more but I randomly include updates in my weekly classroom newsletter. I will let them know when we receive a new donation, how far away we are from reaching our goal, and tell them my excitement when a project is fully funded. Some other ways that you can promote your project are: on your classroom blog (if you have one), through email to friends and family, and by encouraging others to share your project request with their own friends and family. 8. Don't give up! If your first project doesn't get completely funded, don't give up! It takes a lot of hard work to get it funded but sometimes, it just doesn't happen. I have had a couple of projects that didn't get completed. It was definitely a bummer but I didn't give up. I waited a little bit and then posted another project. If a project has partial funding when it expires, donors who contributed have two choices. They can give the amount they donated to your classroom in the form of a gift card for your next project or can donate the money towards a different teacher's project. I hope these tips have helped give you some ideas on how to get a project funded. Be sure to visit DonorsChoose.org and get a project posted. You won't regret it!
A couple of weeks ago we received our two ipods from my Donors Choose project. My students could not have been more excited. (Can you tell they are identical twins?) I knew I wanted to use them as I planned stations for last week. I created some task cards to review prime factorization with my students. Because the concept of prime factorization was still fairly new to my students, I tried to create a variety of task cards - some easy and some more challenging. This allowed students extra practice but the students who caught on right away were not bored. Students were able to use the ipods to self check with the QR codes. I seriously love QR codes - maybe even more than my students. This set of 16 task cards is now available in my TPT store. I have been making task cards like crazy lately. I love task cards that are self check especially as a review for an upcoming assessment. I also created some self check task cards to help my students practice GCF and LCM. How fun are these? My students seem to enjoy these almost as much as using the new ipods. These are also available in my TPT store. We do Centers every Wednesday because I have several students out for G/T. This allows my students to get some extra practice and my G/T students aren't missing out on new content. This means lots of creativity on my part to come up with new centers. I'm sure it will get old eventually but right now I'm loving. I just created these fall themed multiplication task cards. As you can see I still need to cut them out. We will be using these this week. These are also available in my TPT store. My students also LOVED our center with Factor Football. This game is a FREEBIE from Dots-N-Spots. I am so glad I found this game. It really is a great review for students. I can't believe it is a FREEBIE because it is such a great resource. Jump on over there are download it for yourself. You won't regret it.
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I hope everyone is having a relaxing and fun summer. Mine is already half over, the first three weeks flew by, and I'm hoping the next thre...
Corkboard Connections is a blog written by Laura Candler who enjoys connecting terrific teachers with amazing resources!
