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The Inoculation Project 12/17/2023: Books in Texas and Mississippi [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-12-17

This week, we’re helping two elementary-grades teachers: one in Texas needs a popular graphic novel series, and one in Mississippi needs engaging books for her computer lab. We hope that readers who support quality public school education will help by sharing or supporting our featured projects.

The Inoculation Project is an ongoing, volunteer effort to crowdfund science, math, and literacy projects for public schools in low-income neighborhoods. As always, our conduit is DonorsChoose, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation that facilitates tax-deductible donations to specific, vetted projects in public schools.

Hey, it’s getting to be the end of the year, so it is time to remind you of a couple of things:

🎁 DonorsChoose offers gift cards that make a nice little gift for kids (or adults!) that’s a contrast to the usual loot-collection mode Christmas tends to induce. The recipient can choose the project they’d like to help, and apply their gift to do some good and feel good themselves. It’s a little bit late to get actual plastic cards sent in time for Christmas, but they offer designs you can print out yourself, as well as ones they email directly to the recipient. See the page here for more details.

for more details. 🕛 If you would like to close the year with more charitable donations than you have so far made, you can donate to DonorsChoose without having to pick out your projects right now. You can purchase account credits here, so your donation counts in 2023, and dole out the money whenever you like. (When a year has passed, they will apply any remaining unused balance to their urgent projects list for you.)

Okay, on to our new projects! Today, we have a couple of classrooms that need books, whose projects have been languishing for a while. We can help! (I should probably say, although I am sure you know this, that if you’re of a mind to share things on X or FB or elsewhere, by all means feel free to share our projects.)

Mrs. Hinojosa teaches third grade in a Texas town right along the Rio Grande. She wants her students to have this award-winning graphic novel series to read, and now that I’ve seen it, I must say I’d like to read it myself!

PROJECT #1 Project: Hilo Series for My Students! Resources: Help me give my students the best New York Times bestselling graphic novel series. Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households. Location: Delia Gonzalez Garcia Elementary School, Roma, Texas Total: $173.76 Still Needed: $ 173.76 $84.35 Project description by Mrs. Hinojosa: A love of reading opens the door to adventures, learning new things, and a whole host of key language skills such as speech development and vocabulary building. Reading will give my students an understanding of things outside of themselves. As well as gaining a foundation of background knowledge about the world around them, which they can use to make sense of what they see, hear, and feel, reading gives children new ideas about the world which they can then connect to their own lives. Help me create love for reading with these Hilo series which is funny and entertaining at the same time. My students will have an opportunity to read these books during free time and read out loud. My students especially love listening to a story as a whole class. DONATE HERE Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference! Author/illustrator Judd Winick introduces the series. x x YouTube Video

At this school in southeastern Mississippi, Ms. Manasco is trying to help elementary-age students in the computer lab. She caught my attention when she said she needs to have relevant books for “when the internet fails”, suggesting that this happens routinely.

PROJECT #2 Project: STEM Library for Computer Science Resources: Help me give my students a new STEM library for our computer lab. Economic need: An Equity Focus School; nearly all students from low‑income households. Location: North Jones Elementary School, Laurel, Mississippi Total: $343.94 Still Needed: $ 343.94 $254.53 Project description by Ms. Manasco: My computer lab needs STEM books for the students to read about STEM topics I can also read to the younger students to introduce them to STEM topics and digital citizenship. I enjoy using story books with our online activities because students need to read and be read to in all subjects. When the internet fails, it is important to have books to read to the students about Digital Citizenship and other STEM-related subjects. Our library doesn't cover these topics and computer science and digital citizenship are such important topics for students to learn about. It would greatly benefit my students to have access to STEM books to read in our computer science lab. DONATE HERE Donations of ANY size can make a BIG difference! There are a number of good books requested in this project! The Hello Ruby series combines storybooks with activities that help kids understand computers and coding without needing to be online. This little video introduces the series’ Finnish author, Linda Liukas. x x YouTube Video

Both our projects from last week were completed: many thanks to our amazing readers! (And in one case, also to the matching-grant organization!) Project #1, Build and Create: Ms. Brown wanted her Dallas-area middle school students to be able to work with an interesting and innovative building set, for robotics competition and beyond. She writes: Thank you for your support of our robotics classroom and program. With these materials we can create more engineering and STEM based prototypes to help make innovative solutions for various challenges. We look forward to prototyping solutions that help us complete the missions in this season's Sphero Global Challenge. We will then be able to transition the pieces to full time use in our classroom for various uses. Project #2, The Gift of Books: Mrs. Gamboa had a pretty time-sensitive project lined up for her Texas elementary school class, but even with matching funds, it was not seeing the movement it needed — until you showed up! The project page says the books have been delivered. She writes: Wow! Thank you for your kindness and generosity. We will soon start reading The Polar Express book and will follow with fun reading activities to reinforce reading skills already introduced. This book will be a great fun keepsake for my students to receive. I know my students will treasure this book for many years to come. Once again, thank you for your kind heart and for donating these wonderful books to my students!​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​

DonorsChoose has developed the designation Equity Focus Schools to describe some schools that submit projects. They meet two criteria: at least 50% of students are Black, Latinx, Native American, Pacific Islander, or multiracial, and at least 50% of students qualify for free or reduced price lunch, the standard measure for school economic need. You can read more at the link about their efforts to address the longstanding inequity in education.

Founded in 2009, The Inoculation Project seeks to fund science, math, and literacy projects in public school classrooms and libraries. Our conduit is DonorsChoose, a crowdfunding charity founded in 2000 and highly rated by both Charity Navigator and the Better Business Bureau.

Every Sunday, we focus on helping to fund projects in neighborhood public schools where the overwhelming majority of students come from low-income households. We welcome everyone who supports public school education — no money is required!

Finally, here’s our list of successfully funded projects — our series total is 1069! The success-list diary also contains links and additional information about DonorsChoose.

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