Trying for Tech

I have been using DonorsChoose.org for almost two years now. I have been BLESSED with so many learning materials for my classroom and my kids!

• homework backpacks
• TONS of learning materials to put in those homework bags (I currently hae 15 lending bags for the kids to check out to use for homework- each has at least one book and puzzles, games, and other learning activities that center around the theme of the bag: colors, numbers, shapes, rhyming, alphabet, family, art, etc.)
• a sand/water table
• a listening station
• TONS of science materials: an incubator & egg turner (which we are using right now!), a butterfly habitat, a see-through garden window box, life cycle materials, and tons more!
• a photo printer & lots of ink
• a classroom digital camera

Now I am trying to get some technology for my classroom. I am starting with this proposal. It's my goal to find tech tools that will help make the learning even more fun & engaging but more important will allow the kids to use and learn about technology as they will be surrounded by it in their adult lives and will need to know how to use it.

If you know anyone who would be willing to give any amount at all, I'd be so appreciative if you'd pass the link on. The really neat thing about Donors Choose is that donors can give any amount - even $1, and it really does add up. So even though my grant proposal is more than I could ever afford to do on my own, if I give, and a lot of other people give even small amounts, my children could be the recipients of some GREAT learning!

Thanks!!!

a child's compliment cheereth my heart

Today one of my kids (at school) stopped working, looked up at me and said, "Mrs. Thomas, you're still a kid in here," and then pointed at his chest (heart). Oh how that made me smile! I've been told something similar before by a little boy who told me I was "brown on the inside" then he paused and added, "where it counts."

Oh how these little moments (tiny seconds of time) bring joy to my heart and lighten my load at the moment. They let me know that I am important to someone. I know I am to my family, but outside the Thomas/Lane/McCracken household I don't matter much to anyone but God. I'm not well-known and will never have any far-reaching effect or change the world. I am just me, a very large, big-mouthed, child-adoring, crazy-silly mom, wife, daughter, teacher kind of girl. But to some little people I matter; I am important. When I think about it, this is so much more important than feeling like I fit in with my fellow teachers and coworkers, more important than having friends or not as the case may be, and more important than almost any of the stupid, little things that sometimes get me down. I love and I am loved. And in the end, that's all that really matters!

It's like an amazingly awesome little circle- God loves them through me, and I get loved back by God through them. He's just amazing to me! Thank you Father for Your love, for the love You give to me for children, and the love You give back to me through children! I am forever grateful!

once again- Embryology 101

Three years ago, I did a project I have always wanted to do with my students- we hatched chicks, well we tried to. Chicks take 21 days to grow in utero and then hatch. The project went beautifully. We shared it with a lot of the other children and teachers at our school; it was truly WONDERFUL. We watched the chicks growing inside (Did you know you can see inside the egg with a special light? We made one and could watch them moving inside! So utterly amazing and beautiful!) Then hatching day arrived and it was so amazing to watch. I stayed late that evening and watched almost all the chicks hatch successfully, only to come in the next day to disaster. My t.a. (God bless her) and I drove the dying chicks to a nearby vet and paid for them to be put to sleep. She and I stood there crying messes (me mostly) with a box of dead & dying chicks; it (I) was pathetic I'm sure!

I never did the project again; parents and students asked me to, but I've been too afraid. Jump ahead to last summer when I, for some strange reason, wrote a donorschoose grant proposal for an incubator and egg turner- it was funded. So now I'm about to start this project again. "Why?" I am sitting here asking myself. Why????

Because, Rebekah, you've always told your children and "your children" that they cannot let fear stop them, that they have to always keep trying even when it's hard and they're afraid. So am I going to be a good role model or am I going to just be another person who talks the talk but doesn't "walk the walk?"

So, tomorrow we fire up the incubator, build a wet bulb thermometer and prepare to receive a batch of chicken eggs that will- PLEASE GOD- hatch successfully in three weeks into some cute and fuzzy chicks. If you are a praying person, please, please please pray for my chicks, for my students and others who may visit, and for me (to be brave and not a nervous wreck!), but mostly please pray that our chicks hatch well and have no complications like the last time but have a high survival rate this time around. I will be more crushed than I can say if disaster strikes again.

And this week, I will share those old, original posts for myself and anyone else who wants to go there with me. I need to remind myself of the wonder and beauty and joy of life and the amazing lesson I learned from a 5 year old last time around.

post # 1 from May 2007- Embryology 101

Until next time, hope you have a blessed, wonderful, happy week!
Love,
BekaBoo :)