Monday’s post was a bit of bummer to write.

Today, something completely different! 🙂

We’ve struggled mightily with figuring out the ELA section of the Common Core like most have.  It’s very broad, not overly specific, and just hard to wrap my all ready stressed out brain around, but that’s for a new blog post.

So, one of our plans is to do a literature study each quarter with an exemplar from our specific grade level.  We submitted our books, purchase orders, and got told “ok, we’ll get three, but not all four.”

#what

So, we start getting creative about what to do, and I pulled out Donor’s Choose.  I’ve never used it before, but have always wanted to test a project to see how things worked.  So, I put up that I would like 32 copies of The House on Mango Street, sharing this via Twitter, Facebook, a runner website I frequent, and email..  This was very hard for me because I’m not that guy who easily asks for help.  In fact, I just don’t and that’s how I get myself into trouble sometimes, but that’s another blog post too! 🙂  So, July 21, my request went live and I sat around all day clicking the refresh button.  Ok, maybe not, but I was excited to see what would happen.

Within two days, half the project was funded.

#whoa

Within a month, I had a fully funded project and I sit here today with 32 freshly covered (thank you Annette B.) and an appreciation for the human spirit as a whole.  Of the ten donors, one was someone I’ve met face to face.  How cool is that?? These people, who don’t know I’m a curmudgeon gave their money to help my kids?? People I only know through pictures, voices, and videos.  That fact just floors me, but gives me hope.

So, there’s my happy for the week.  As I think about this blog and all that’s gone into it, I’m going to start trying to make a blog post on Fridays about the happy things going on.  We need more of that, and if you look hard, you can always find them.

Oh, and if you’ve got some crazy good activities or ideas for The House on Mango Street, I’d love to hear them! 🙂