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This school year, students and teachers are facing challenges like never before. Students are feeling the emotional impact of adjusting to distance learning, grappling with a rapidly changing world and coping with being away from friends and peers.

When teachers have the necessary tools to address the social and emotional learning (SEL) needs of their students, not only can they help students re-focus on learning, but they can also help build well-rounded, emotionally mature young adults.

Helping Students Thrive through Social and Emotional Learning

Last month, The Allstate Foundation fully funded 1,817 SEL project requests from 1,703 teachers across the country, giving teachers tools to help their students build emotional resilience and handle the challenges around them. This funding reached teachers and students at 1,585 schools.

“Our gift rewards the resilience so many teachers and students have shown through such a turbulent time for schools, educators, and families,” said Allstate’s Senior Vice President of Corporate Brand Stacy Sharpe. “It’s especially important this year to make sure students and teachers have what they need to be successful.”

The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) defines social and emotional learning as the process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.

Criteria for qualifying projects was developed using resources from CASEL’s five core competencies framework:

• Self-awareness
• Self-management
• Social awareness
• Relationship skills
• Responsible decision making

Qualifying projects spoke to culturally relevant teaching, mindfulness, community leadership, self-regulation, coping strategies, responsible citizens, managing social situations, and managing anxiety.

Hear from South Dakota teachers on The Today Show how writing notes of gratitude helps their students.

For more information about The Allstate Foundation’s commitment to SEL and resources for teachers and families, visit AllstateFoundation.org.

At DonorsChoose, US public school teachers across the country request resources to help their students learn, and donors and partners give to the projects that inspire them. As the most trusted crowdfunding platform for teachers, donors, and district administrators alike, DonorsChoose vets each request, ships the funded resources directly to the teacher, and provides thank-yous and reporting to donors and school leaders.

Every day, district administrators work hard behind the scenes to help bring learning to life. Our Advocacy and Public Partnerships team works closely with these administrators to help them reach their goals for teachers and students alike. Beyond partnering with education associations like AASA, NSBA, and CoSN, we also partner with 100+ school districts through our free District Partnership Program.

We team up with districts to do even more

The District Partnership Program is designed for district leaders who want to leverage DonorsChoose as an intentional part of their fundraising program. Since the launch last fall, DPP districts have received nearly $37 million in donations to project requests, reaching over 6 million students.

Innovative districts of all sizes have joined the program, from Howard-Suamico School District serving 6,103 students, to our most recent 100th member NYCDOE, the nation’s largest public school district serving more than 1 million students. Many administrators encourage teachers to request resources through DonorsChoose in line with district-wide initiatives, like 1:1 technology or college readiness.This free program provides the following benefits to district leaders:

• A customized fundraising landing page
• Central office reporting
• First notification of funding opportunities
• Annual report for district leaders
• and more!

In total, more than 6.1 million of the students we reach benefit from this enhanced support through our District Partnership Program. Learn more about how we partner with public school districts across the country.

In-store point of sale (POS) fundraising campaigns have been a mainstay of corporate social responsibility for decades. These campaigns are traditionally the domain of big box retailers that have the technical capacity to build a donation request function in their POS systems, at a national scale. Yet, when customers give a dollar or round up their purchase and donate the change, they see no impact beyond a line item on their receipt and have no idea where or how their donation will be used.

Meanwhile, small local businesses like cafes, salons, and independent specialty shops—which constantly seek ways to connect with their surrounding communities—are left with ineffective options like coin jars or complicated fundraising nights. Even when these collections are effective, owners have to spend time tabulating dimes and quarters, writing checks, and mailing funding to the nonprofit they support.

Democratizing Point of Sale Fundraising with Clover

DonorsChoose, Clover, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation identified an opportunity to democratize POS fundraising and empower small businesses across the country to easily and directly support their local communities. 

DonorsChoose is the most trusted nonprofit crowdfunding platform for giving to public schools across the country. Teachers request resources for their classrooms, and donors, companies, and foundation partners support those requests. Clover designs and builds POS devices that makes accepting payments simple and easy for small business owners.

We worked with the team at Clover to launch Round Up for Schools, a free Clover app that gives customers the chance to round up their purchase to the nearest dollar, in support of a DonorsChoose project from a teacher at a nearby school. To help us kick off the campaign and generate excitement among merchants, the Gates Foundation doubled every round up.

Round Up for Schools Inspired $107,294 Towards Learning Requests In the First Year

Primarily, our teams were interested to see whether this type of turnkey, hyperlocal philanthropic engagement would be compelling for small businesses in both the long and short term.

We launched the app on July 15, 2019, and here are our results from the first 12 months:

• 2,256 merchants downloaded Round Up for Schools
• 716 merchants collected at least 1 donation through Round Up for Schools
• $53,647.04 in total was raised through Round Up for Schools, which, in combination with the Gates match, led to $107,294.08 total applied to learning project requests

Giving Trends and Motivations Vary by Industry

Overall, the food services industry was the most valuable industry for round ups; 45% of merchants were of this industry, but it provided 53% of round ups. These businesses have a high number of daily transactions, giving staff ample opportunity to ask customers to round up.

Interestingly, clothing & community retailers showed higher than average donation rates (though fewer total transactions). Our hunch is that these types of businesses offer an ideal setting for pitching a round up. At these merchants, an ask to round up doesn’t compete with a potential tip. These retailers tend to have a more relaxed, slower paced environment than food services, giving customers more time to talk with a store owner or associate who can strongly advocate for DonorsChoose prior to checking out.

We spoke to the merchants who were most successful at fundraising using the app. These business owners tended to care about supporting their community, local schools, or education more broadly. Many of them trained their staff on how to engage with customers about making a donation and almost all even tapped the donation screen on the customer's behalf to make it a customary part of their checkout process.

We also uncovered a spectrum of motivations for using the app. The majority of merchants we spoke to shared their altruistic reasons for running Round Up for Schools, while others used it as a hook to get community members in the door.

COVID Impact Rippled to Round Up for Schools

Small businesses have been hit especially hard during the COVID-19 crisis, and that impact was felt in Round Up for School donations as well. Donations dropped sharply in March when the pandemic hit, but — optimistically — they have not stopped completely. Donations and merchant participation were lowest in April, but slowly and surely increased each subsequent month.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on the Round Up for Schools app as areas begin to reopen so that we can see how small businesses are tapping into local giving as a way to build trust and support from their communities.

Questions We’re Still Exploring

Looking forward, we have many curiosities to unpack. We're interested if the average merchant lifetime is impacted more by the pandemic or if it's common for our small businesses to want to run short fundraising campaigns instead of fundraising year-round. 

We’re also currently running an A/B test for the merchants who are still using Round Up for Schools, asking the question of how merchant and customer engagement is impacted when a customer is given the option of leaving a different donation amount. Instead of simply being asked to round up, donors will be given a range of donation amounts. We’re excited to see if this product change will increase donation rates and amounts.

Research shows that teachers know financial literacy is an essential skill but may not know how to bring those lessons to students. To address this issue, Charles Schwab Foundation teamed up with DonorsChoose to inspire and uncover teachers’ best-in-class ideas for helping their students strengthen their financial literacy skills.

We called on teachers across the country to submit their best ideas for introducing these key concepts to students, and financial literacy experts chose the most innovative projects. We asked the public to vote for their favorite project, and the winning teacher, Ms. Bains, won $1,000.

Check out lesson plans for your class from our finalists below!

Finalists & Project Curriculum

Congratulations to Ms. Bains, winner of our public voting!

Entrepreneurs in the Making

Ms. Bains | Grades PreK–2 | Sacramento, CA | Lesson Plan

Ms. Baines is helping her kindergartners build an even brighter future by providing a strong foundation in basic financial literacy principles.

Congratulations to our other finalists below!

💻 indicates that this lesson plan contains a distance learning adaptation!

Making Sense of Money And Becoming Financially Responsible

Ms. Trochez MacLean | Grades PreK–2 | Los Angeles, CA | Lesson Plan  💻

Ms. Trochez MacLean is helping her students develop coin recognition, understand the importance of saving, learn how to determine the values of different coin combinations, and grasp the difference between wants and needs.

Roller Coasters + Rube Goldberg = Financial Literacy!

Mrs. Martel | Grades PreK–2 | Toccoa, GA | Lesson Plan

Mrs. Martel is engaging her students in a combination of science and financial literacy as they budget for, plan, and will ultimately build model roller coasters in class.

Teaching Money Skills and Inspiring Kindness

Ms. R. | Grades PreK–2 | Tucson, AZ | Lesson Plan

Guided by the belief that children often learn best by following the examples of others, Ms. R. will create math and financial literacy lessons based on engaging books with characters who use money to help others and promote kindness.

Classroom Transformation: Classroom Economy!

Ms. Witherell | Grades 3-5 | Greenfield, MA | Lesson Plan

Ms. Witherell wants to turn her classroom into an economic learning center with several stations for students to work on financial literacy. At the end of each activity, the class will debrief together on what they learn from each station, how they were able to save money, and the economic challenges they faced.

Entrepreneurial Skills With Osmo Pizza Co.

Mrs. Brown | Grades 3-5 | Van Buren, AR | Lesson Plan  💻

Mrs. Brown will use her Osmo Pizza kit to teach her students real-world math, financial literacy concepts, and emotional intelligence.

Sustainable Financing

Dr. Robinson | Grades 3-5 | Raleigh, NC | Lesson Plan  

Dr. Robinson will engage her students in developing a business plan for creating sustainable products in class, which they’ll then learn how to market. Their proceeds will ultimately go to support real-life international micro-loans students will help select through the nonprofit KIVA!

Creating a Mini Classroom Economy

Ms. Posluszny | Grades 6-8 | Union City, NJ | Lesson Plan  💻

Ms. Posluszny is bringing real-world scenarios into her classroom, such as, performing jobs to earn (pretend) money to help her students experience first hand the impact of their decisions to save, spend, and budget.

Tales from the Crypto (Currency) Keeper

Mrs. Novicky | Grades 9-12 | Akron, OH | Lesson Plan  💻

Mrs. Novicky's students will experience how blockchain and cryptocurrency work through the development of a token economy, where students will create a cryptocurrency, and then utilize that cryptocurrency in class to manufacture product, ultimately demonstrating cryptocurrency's roll in the transfer of goods.

The Big Deal Behind the New Deal!

Mr. Barbosa | Grades 9-12 | Mission, TX | Lesson Plan  💻

Mr. Barbosa and his students will explore the different ways the New Deal provided for improvements and infrastructure in our National Parks and how the New Deal attempted to address and provide for the different budgetary needs of individuals during the Great Depression.

Thank you to these teachers for their inventive ideas and lesson plans! Inspired to create your own financial literacy project? Get started.

Between learning multiplication, prepping for the SATs, Zoom classrooms, and more, there’s a lot on students’ minds this year; the upcoming election is no exception! Because of the national energy and attention put on civic engagement during the presidential election season, teachers have a rich opportunity to help students learn to use their voices — now, and once they’re able to vote.

To help teachers get the tools they need to impart these essential life lessons to their students, we’ve partnered with an anonymous Classroom Supporter to provide teachers with resources, funding, and opportunities to drive civic engagement among students this fall. From registering your high school seniors to vote to running a mock election with your 4th graders, you can empower students to have a say now and in the future.

As part of this initiative, we’ve also partnered with When We All Vote, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, to provide teachers with resources and guidance to get their school community registered and ready to vote in November.

Submit Your Most Innovative Ideas for a 2X Match Offer and a Chance to Win

While funds last, donations to qualifying projects that engage students in civic action will be doubled. At the end of the challenge, a panel of judges will select the top 5 projects to receive $5,000 in DonorsChoose classroom funding.

Check out our help center for full details on how to qualify, along with the challenge rubric our judges will use to select the winning projects, and project examples to kick off your brainstorm.

Get started

Register High Schoolers to Vote and Earn DonorsChoose Funding

When We All Vote is a non-profit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to increasing participation in every election and closing the race and age voting gap. To help make sure high school students are registered to vote in November, high school teachers are invited to participate in the When We All Vote Classroom Rewards opportunity. 

If you’re a high school teacher, when you register to create a My School Votes team, you’ll earn $50 for your classroom in DonorsChoose credits. When you then attend a virtual My School Votes Welcome Call hosted by When We All Vote, you’ll receive an additional $100 in DonorsChoose credits.

Learn more

Resources to Get You Started

Looking for some inspiration? We’ve put together a set of resources to help you bring civic engagement to your students and to your school community.

Teaching For Democracy Alliance

Find lesson plans and teaching resources to guide and inspire your curriculum for teaching about democracy and the election. 

Kickstart Action Civics

Participate in this free, 3 hour professional development course provided by Generation Citizen to help you get ready to engage your students in civics.

Host a Voter Registration Event During When We All Vote’s Week of Action

Rally your high school around voter registration throughout September 21–25 (or any days before the voter registration deadline in our state). Voter Registration events can be as simple as sharing this voter registration link in all senior classrooms!

Create Your Own Voter Registration Page 

With the tool “Register Together” created by When We All Vote, you can generate a personal voter registration page. The page tracks how many people you’ve registered to vote and gives you the opportunity to share why voting is important to you.

Help Students Under 18 Prepare to Vote 

Through Vote.org, students under 18 can pledge to register to vote. They’ll provide a cell number and their birthday, and will receive a text message on their 18th birthday to help register them to vote.

Voting and COVID-19 Information 

Vote.org’s state-by-state guide for how COVID-19 has affected voting. Find your state to share the information with your school community!

The 2020–2021 school year will look like none other, and every student will have a unique experience due to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. Millions of students will or are already conducting distance learning, and how the rest of the year unfolds is still up in the air. But student athletes and coaches alike are determined to keep school sports — and the valuable lessons they impart — alive, no matter where students are learning from.

To get better insight into what teachers are anticipating and the resources they’ll need, we partnered with DICK’S Sporting Goods Foundation to survey coaches within the DonorsChoose community. We asked 400 high school, middle school, and elementary school teachers who serve as coaches and athletic directors to share their thoughts with us.

Here’s what we learned.

Coaches anticipate a decrease in student athlete engagement

Half of respondents are unsure if they will be able to coach or train their teams at all, and 73% are concerned about students’ interest in joining sports teams.

For coaches and students planning to continue with sports this year, uncertainty about the season is weighing heavy on their minds. Coaches, many of whom expect to be training at least partially remotely, are additionally concerned about whether or not remote training will engage student athletes.

“Sports matter! Please don’t allow this crisis to take away sports!” —Middle School Athletic Coach

Individualized training tools are a top need, especially when coaching remotely

Most teachers (70%) are anticipating a decrease in sports funding, which compounds safety concerns about shared equipment and student access to training tools. Teachers shared their top concerns for coaching remotely:

For teachers who anticipate training in person, they’re most concerned about the ability to social distance, the safety of shared training equipment, and a lack of sanitation supplies.

“My school is a low income/Title- 1 school. We reuse our resources year after year and make sure students who make our dance team don't pay a dime. They have been reusing the same uniforms, duffle bags, pom poms, costumes, etc for several years (decades?!). There are no protocols for sanitation and we could really use new resources.” —High School Athletic Coach

When thinking about resources they would likely request through DonorsChoose, both groups listed individualized training equipment and sanitization items as their top needs.

Coaches are hungry for resources and professional development

A majority of respondents (67%) who anticipate remote engagement are interested in professional development about how to train and support sports teams.

Respondents would like to see professional development content about...

• Player safety
• Individualized athlete training/socially distanced training
• How to create and record remote training videos
• Staying connected to team while social distancing, how to be a team while apart

No matter what this school year brings for teachers, coaches, and student athletes, our community is dedicated to helping students thrive. Support a sports project today.

Teaching 1st grade from home? Trying classroom management both in-person and online? Broadcasting circle time from an empty classroom? Those aren’t the punchline of a really bad joke — it’s the reality that so many teachers are facing. 

Transitioning your class to a new (unprecedented) school year is tricky enough; we want to make sure you are empowered with the tools you need to bring learning to life. 

Here are the top five materials 1st grade teachers are requesting on DonorsChoose, the classroom funding site for teachers. These materials will help make online teaching and learning a snap (or at least as easy as it possibly can be)! And the best part? These supplies can be used when you’re back in the classroom too!

Get supplies for 1st Graders

Basic supplies

Whether in the classroom or remote, your students need the basics to do their best learning. Having materials like pre-sharpened pencils, glue sticks, and scissors for each student cuts down on germs and contact.

“I’m going to ask for individual supplies for the students. They can be used to make at-home learning kits or individual supply bags for the classroom. You can NEVER have too many supplies!” –Mrs. Kilgore 

Books

Kinder teachers across the country are stocking up on books this year for classroom library shelves or creating book bundles to send home with their students. Some of the most popular titles include The Day You Begin, Our Class is a Family, and I Am Enough. If you have a special read-aloud planned, consider requesting a class set of books. When each child has a copy of the book, they can track the words as you read, scan the illustrations, and turn the pages with you. 

Hands-on Learning Tools

Engaging students in learning using hands-on materials like LEGOs, Brain Flakes, or sensory beads, and is a great way to make learning come alive through the screen. Pro tip for hybrid teaching: Have a plan in place for students to take home hands-on learning materials in pencil cases or kits.

Flexible Seating

In past years teachers have requested flexible seating in their classrooms to give students an alternate option that helps them focus, experiment, and find what works best for them. This year, teachers who are in the classroom some days are keeping safety and cleanliness are top of mind, prompting teachers to request materials like wobble stools and yoga mats to create individual learning spaces. If you’re teaching from home but have an especially wiggly learner, you can send a special seat their way!

Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Cards

Access to the digital resources you need for your students is key for online, in-person, or hybrid learning. With the freedom of a TeachersPayTeacher gift card, you can request the worksheets, lesson plan outlines, and templates that you need. 

Teaching 1st grade this fall is a challenge you shouldn’t have to face alone. We’re here to help you get the learning materials you need — no matter where you’re bringing learning to life! 

Get supplies for 1st Graders

Looking for inspiration from other grade levels? Check out popular materials at every grade:

• Pre-K
• Kindergarten
• 1st Grade
• 2nd Grade
• 3rd Grade
• 4th Grade
• 5th Grade
• Middle School
• High School

Regardless of whether you’re teaching everyday from your basement-turned-office or you’re back in the physical classroom every other day, there’s no doubt that remote and hybrid learning are a unique challenge. 

We checked in with what 5th grade teachers are doing to make online learning happen, and these top-requested resources came up time and time again. No matter what situation you’re facing, these are some tried-and-true-supplies to help make the most of this school year, distanced and beyond.

Get supplies for 5th Graders

Writing Materials for the Win

You won’t be surprised to find out that most teachers are getting back to basics to make distance learning happen, making writing materials the most popular items for 5th grade project requests so far this year. From erasers to pre-sharpened pencils to composition notebooks, writing is still key, regardless of where learning is happening.

Access to Subscriptions & Technology

5th grade teachers have been requesting digital resources  to help bring distance learning to life for their students. Access to both physical and digital supplies make it easy for students to learn together, while learning and staying up-to-date with the world around them. With these skills being built at home, some teachers are also requesting supplies like tablets and styluses to help students learn the key skills of annotation and note-taking. 

Top Reads on 5th grade Teachers’ Lists Right Now

No matter where learning is happening, for 5th graders, books are as important as ever for inspiring world-building, writing, and sparking creativity. This isn’t a comprehensive list, but these titles made it to the top of the list for 5th grade teachers this year. Whether you’re organizing supply pickups once a month or supplies are being sent directly to your students’ homes, these titles will deliver the right kind of surprise and delight. 

1. The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson
2. I Am Enough by Grace Byers
3. The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi
4. Hair Love by Matthew Cherry
5. Just Ask!: Be Different, Be Brave, Be You by Sonia Sotomayor

New Kid by Jerry Craft

Get supplies for 5th Graders

Looking for inspiration from other grade levels? Check out popular materials at every grade:

• Pre-K
• Kindergarten
• 1st Grade
• 2nd Grade
• 3rd Grade
• 4th Grade
• 5th Grade
• Middle School

High School

Whether your students are in a hybrid learning situation or remote learning completely, you and your kids will be spending less time together than in the past. 

With that in mind, here are the top materials middle school teachers are requesting on DonorsChoose, the classroom funding site for teachers, to make the transition to online teaching and learning a snap (or at least as easy as it possibly can be)! And the best part? These materials can be used when you’re back in the classroom too!

Get supplies for Middle Schoolers

Basics for the home & the classroom

From pre-sharpened pencils to loose-leaf paper, basics never go out of style and can be used by students at home or in the classroom. It can be hard to get a handle on what individual students need when you’re just getting to know them, let alone remotely, so many teachers are submitting surveys to parents or seeking guidance from their administrators. Knowing that all your middle school students have the basics to solve complex equations or write a journal entry helps clear the way for even more learning! 

Subscribe and thrive

Teachers have been requesting digital resources to help bring distance learning to life for their students. Access to both physical and digital supplies make it easy for students to learn together, while learning and staying up-to-date with the world around them. 

When it comes to subscribing to software, middle school teachers are submitting projects for Nearpod Platinum subscriptions, which features interactive lessons and enrichment experiences like virtual field trips, which are suddenly more precious than ever.

Books you can bring anywhere

This year, middle school teachers are most requesting most the young readers editions of timely adult titles including Just Mercy by Bryan Stevensen, Stamped by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds, and Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly. Hot on the heels of these titles is the endearing, empathetic graphic novel New Kid by Jerry Craft. Whether in small groups or reading independently, the magic of books is there for your students no matter where they’re learning. 

Teachers Pay Teachers gift cards

The team at DonorsChoose recently added Teachers Pay Teachers gift cards as an item that teachers can request, and middle school educators are jumping in to submit projects for this hot ticket item! After all, if you need study units, worksheets, graphic organizers, or activity bundles, who better to turn to than a fellow teacher for resources? 

Get supplies for Middle Schoolers

Looking for inspiration from other grade levels? Check out popular materials at every grade:

• Pre-K
• Kindergarten
• 1st Grade
• 2nd Grade
• 3rd Grade
• 4th Grade
• 5th Grade
• Middle School
• High School

As the school year begins, COVID-19 means that “back-to-school” is going to mean something different for everyone. When we surveyed teachers, only 8% were confident they’d be spending the year entirely in the classroom; everyone else was getting ready for distance learning, blended learning, remote learning, online learning — whatever you call it, it’s a new experience and a new challenge for teachers. 

Based on tens of thousands of DonorsChoose projects, here’s what teachers need most this back-to-school season in every grade level. 

Supplies for remote learning in elementary school

Teachers working in the younger grades are looking for toys, books, seating, and basic supplies to keep their kids engaged while learning remotely. 

• Pre-K
• Kindergarten
• 1st Grade
• 2nd Grade
• 3rd Grade
• 4th Grade
• 5th Grade

 Supplies for remote learning in middle school

Books, digital resources, and basic supplies top the list for most-requested distance learning items for middle school teachers.

Supplies for remote learning in high school

Books, technology, and supplies for care packages are top of mind for high school teachers looking to move to remote learning this year.

Get the supplies you need

You know exactly how you usually stock up your high school classroom for the school year. But how do you know what materials you need when your students are learning from home?

Here’s the three things every high school teacher needs for the school year ahead, whether your school district is calling it remote learning, distance learning, or online learning (or even if you’re teaching in a hybrid learning model right now).

Get supplies for High Schoolers

Tech that helps your students follow along.

You’re constantly annotating, diagramming, and capturing notes for your students to follow along—and now that you’re not in front of your students all day, a chalkboard or projector won’t do the trick. 

High school teachers are picking up a few different solutions: some folks adore using an iPad and stylus—the Apple Pencil is popular—instead, and still other folks just like old-fashioned chart paper and markers that you can mark up in front of the camera. 

A care package for every student (with supplies and something fun inside).

Just because you’re not hearing “Can I borrow a pencil?” all day doesn’t mean you don’t have students who aren’t sitting at home without one. High school teachers are creating at-home learning kits for every student. The trending items: a notebook, pack of mechanical pencils, a set of highlighters, and some healthy snacks (NutriGrain bars and trail mix are in the lead), all alongside any other basics for your class.

Not to be forgotten: high school teachers are adding in something fun and personal, whether it’s a card for the student and their family welcoming them to the school year, or a set of low-cost themed supplies specific to your class. (As small as it feels, a globe-themed eraser or math joke magnet acts as an in-person reminder of your class when they sign off every day.)

Subscription to resources that will last all year long.

Teachers have been requesting digital resources to help bring distance learning to life for their students. Access to both physical and digital supplies make it easy for students to learn together, while learning and staying up-to-date with the world around them.

teachers are keeping it all digital with subscriptions to Nearpod Platinum, an online resource that helps you turn every presentation interactive with mini-quizzes and activities throughout (and even has virtual field trip options). 

You can check out both of those, plus a whole lot of other subscriptions, at DonorsChoose vendor AKJ Education.

The top reads high school teachers are getting right now

Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson

Clap When You Land, by Elizabeth Acevedo

Internment, by Samira Ahmed

Dear Martin, by Nic Stone

Children of Blood and Bone, by Tomi Adeyemi

One of Us Is Lying, by Karen M. McManus

Get supplies for High Schoolers

Looking for inspiration from other grade levels? Check out popular materials at every grade:

• Pre-K
• Kindergarten
• 1st Grade
• 2nd Grade
• 3rd Grade
• 4th Grade
• 5th Grade
• Middle School
• High School

Teaching 2nd grade from home? Trying classroom management both in-person and online? Broadcasting circle time from an empty classroom? Those aren’t the punchline of a really bad joke — it’s the reality that so many teachers are facing. 

Transitioning your class to a new (unprecedented) school year is tricky enough; we want to make sure you are empowered with the tools you need to bring learning to life. 

Here are the top five materials 2nd grade teachers are requesting on DonorsChoose, the classroom funding site for teachers. These materials will help make online teaching and learning a snap (or at least as easy as it possibly can be)! And the best part? These supplies can be used when you’re back in the classroom too!

Get supplies for 2nd Graders

Basic supplies

Whether in the classroom or remote, your students need the basics to do their best learning. Having materials like pre-sharpened pencils, glue sticks, and scissors for each student cuts down on germs and contact.

“I’m going to ask for individual supplies for the students. They can be used to make at-home learning kits or individual supply bags for the classroom. You can NEVER have too many supplies!” –Mrs. Kilgore 

Books

Kinder teachers across the country are stocking up on books this year for classroom library shelves or creating book bundles to send home with their students. Some of the most popular titles include The Day You Begin, Our Class is a Family, and I Am Enough. If you have a special read-aloud planned, consider requesting a class set of books. When each child has a copy of the book, they can track the words as you read, scan the illustrations, and turn the pages with you. 

Hands-on Learning Tools

Engaging students in learning using hands-on materials like LEGOs, Brain Flakes, or sensory beads, and is a great way to make learning come alive through the screen. Pro tip for hybrid teaching: Have a plan in place for students to take home hands-on learning materials in pencil cases or kits.

Flexible Seating

In past years teachers have requested flexible seating in their classrooms to give students an alternate option that helps them focus, experiment, and find what works best for them. This year, teachers who are in the classroom some days are keeping safety and cleanliness are top of mind, prompting teachers to request materials like wobble stools and yoga mats to create individual learning spaces. If you’re teaching from home but have an especially wiggly learner, you can send a special seat their way!

Teachers Pay Teachers Gift Cards

Access to the digital resources you need for your students is key for online, in-person, or hybrid learning. With the freedom of a TeachersPayTeacher gift card, you can request the worksheets, lesson plan outlines, and templates that you need. 

Teaching 2nd grade this fall is a challenge you shouldn’t have to face alone. We’re here to help you get the learning materials you need — no matter where you’re bringing learning to life! 

Get supplies for 2nd Graders

Looking for inspiration from other grade levels? Check out popular materials at every grade:

• Pre-K
• Kindergarten
• 1st Grade
• 2nd Grade
• 3rd Grade
• 4th Grade
• 5th Grade
• Middle School
• High School