Supporting Our Friends at Kids In Need Foundation

Our friends at Kids In Need Foundation are in this week's Target Give Joy Promotion and we are happy to support their participation! They'd like you're support too and here's what you can do to help Kids In Need Foundation receive up to $50,000 this week: go to www.facebook.com/target and create a wish list. For each wish list that's created, Target will give a $5 donation, up to a maximum of $50,000 per nonprofit organization.

Kids In Need Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring that every child is prepared to learn and succeed by providing free school supplies nationally to students most in need. If you're a teacher at a Title 1 school located near one of their 25 resource centers, you should make a trip out to pick up free supplies!

So here are more detailed instructions about the Target Give Joy Promotion- we promise it's very easy to do:

• Go to facebook.com/target
• Click on the “Give Joy” tab, then click the “Get started now” button and allow permission
• You will see 20 products – select 5 to add to your list by clicking “Click to Add” under the products of your choice
• Click the red “Submit your list” button
• On the next page, a pop-up will ask you to share your list on your Facebook wall. You can add a personal comment – add something about why you support Kids In Need Foundation and why your Facebook friends should help out by creating their own wish list too!
• Click “Publish”

After you submit a list, you can enter the sweepstakes to win a Target gift card to purchase your wish list items. You can only enter the sweepstakes for the gift card once during the week. However, as far as we know, you can create one list a day to for the $5 donation to Kids In Need Foundation.

Please share this with all family, friends, and colleagues!

Guest Blogger: TIMING IS EVERYTHING, ISN'T IT?

By Laurie Johns, 1st Grade Teacher, Greenbrae Elementary

Teachers: The whole idea behind Adopt-A-Classroom is to get your classroom adopted, correct? That requires getting friends, family and businesses to adopt you. To do that you need to ASK, ASK, ASK. The more businesses and people you get supporting you, the more money for your classroom. What a sweet deal!


We as teachers all know it’s expensive to get things we need for our classrooms. What a better way than to have someone “adopt” your classroom, or your special project. Now, I am a true believer that timing is everything. The end of the year is a perfect time to ask family, friends, businesses to consider adopting your classroom. Many people and businesses are looking for last minute, end of the year, tax write-offs. Why not have them donate to your classroom! The time to act and ask is NOW!


My suggestion is to make several copies of the Adopt-A-Classroom donation form (click here for a copy) with your school and classroom information already filled out, then take them with you in the car, in your purse, your work bag so you have them with you wherever you go and ASK everyplace you go. What can it hurt? You never know who will be looking for you at this time of year… Remind them that making a donation is 100% tax deductible and you may get more than you thought. You never know unless you try and you may just get what you ask for just because timing is everything!

Guest Blogger: USING THE WEB TO FINANCE AND ENHANCE THE CLASSROOM

By Amy Bennett-Rosado, Kindergarten Teacher, Lexington Elementary

Thanks to technology, I as a teacher now have the power to fund and implement a technology-integrated classroom. I realized quickly big plans and no funds were a common aspect of teaching in public education. So here is a peek into part of a typical day in my kindergarten classroom that I partially funded and integrated with technology:

I arrive at school and turn on my laptop, projector, and interactive white board and document camera. I review my lesson plans using my online plan book, a resource I learned about through a teacher in Canada, via an online learning group. I print any pages that I need using a donated printer, from an online school-technology donation program. Class begins, and during reading, my students are divided into groups based upon the results of their assessments, administered through online software.

One group heads toward two computers to play web based reading games. The monitors and the mice for these computers were funded through an Adopt-A-Classroom donation. Another group huddles around a basket with electronic reading pens and e-books, which were also purchased with funds from my Adopt-A-Classroom donor.

While these students are engaged in stimulating reading, I read with a third group of students and record notes about their reading using a free online grade book. As Reading time ends, I use my tablet, connected to my interactive white board, to remotely play a children’s music video; this familiar song signals my students to transition to Math. The tablet I use was purchased at a local technology conference that I was able to attend for free because I signed up online to volunteer service time.

This is how my students and I progress through the day, integrated and interacting with technology thanks to Adopt-A-Classroom and other web based programs that gave me, a teacher, the power to fully fund a technology-integrated classroom.

Guest Blogger: A TEACHER'S PERSPECTIVE

By Jake McDuffee, Language Arts Teacher, Winchester Village Elementary

When I first signed up for Adopt-A-Classroom, I was excited about the opportunity to get supplies for my classroom. I was fortunate enough to be adopted by a donor almost immediately. I told a colleague about the program and the following year, we both were adopted by the same donor. Both of us have been adopted for five straight years now. The feeling I get every year is one of validation.

In a time when education is a political position, a tax-raising proposition to vote down, or just one number to be wrung out of an entire year of effort, it is so relieving to be appreciated through the Adopt-A-Classroom process. Each year, the donation I receive says to me, “I trust in your judgment. I believe you know what your students need to know, how they can be led to what they need to know, and what tools are needed along the way.”

Teaching is sometimes referred to as the noble profession. In the Merriam-Webster thesaurus, noble can be replaced with words like exalted, glorified, or venerable. These are not words I would use to describe my feelings at the end of the day. However, the affirmation I feel every year when I receive an email from Adopt-A-Classroom lifts me up for a while. This program and my donor remind me of the importance of the choice I made when I decided to become a teacher.

12 Champions of Change™

It's almost 2011 and we are proud that Adopt-A-Classroom is featured in the 2011 Champions of Change calendar! The calendar is designed to raise awareness for charitable organizations and we are highlighted in the month of August, right in time for the Back-to-School season.

Each month of the calendar features a different organization and we are pleased to be in the company of outstanding groups such as City Year, Smile Train, Goodwill Industries, and Ronald McDonald House.

It's hard to believe that 2011 will be here soon, but if you (or your company) are shopping for 2011 calendars, please consider purchasing this one! It's a different way to support school fundraising efforts because 10% of sales will be donated to the featured organizations. A single calendar is $14.99 and discounted pricing is also available for bulk orders. Take a look at www.metrocanyon.com/products.html or you can make a purchase directly on Amazon.