Monday, January 27, 2014

Caring Classrooms Made My Monday Better

Ugh! Monday... and after we had an "ice" day on Friday. And this is South Texas. We don't get ice days. But, cities down here are built with an entirely elevated highway system, and you can't drive anywhere without getting on a highway. An eighth of an inch of ice on the overpasses was all that was needed to shut the city of San Antonio down for nearly the entire day. 

Mondays are always hard no matter who you are, so when I saw this morning that my current Donor's Choose project had been chosen to be featured on the Caring Classrooms page, I was thrilled!

I know many (if not all) of you have heard of Donor's Choose, a website to help teachers get funding for materials for their classrooms. Money in education is hard to come by at best, and this website helps so many teachers get what they need. But it can be hard to get your project noticed (and therefore funded) with so many to choose from. Cue the entrance of Laura Candler and her Caring Classrooms page!

What Laura has done is harness her power to bring teachers together in a community supporting each other. Every week, the Caring Classrooms Facebook page hosts Fund-day Sunday. All you need to do to join is like the Facebook page and donate at least $1 to one of the projects featured on the Caring Classrooms Donor's Choose page. Then you can offer up your project each Sunday to see if yours is chosen. More than $35,000! That's how much money Laura's page has raised for teachers! Simply amazing!

My project is called Literature Circles for All. I was inspired to try literature circles in my classroom, but didn't have a good selection of titles for the reading levels and interests in my classroom. I have told my students about this prospect, and they are so excited! They can't wait to improve their reading skills through high-interest chapter books, rather than basal stories or reading passages. 

So, if you have not joined the Caring Classrooms community or tried out a Donor's Choose project, now is the time! There really is nothing to lose!