The Lily Sarah Grace Fund - Helps You Get Your Art Projects Funded!

Twice a year the Lily Sarah Grace Fund helps public school teachers get the art supplies and theater resources they need. They have a large $1,500 grant and a smaller grant too.

To apply, you need to be a Kindergarten - Fifth Grade teacher, and teach at a Title I school. What you do is first think of arts related project that you can tie into your academic curriculum. You write a DonorsChoose proposal, limiting your resources to either the large grant or the smaller grant.

The deadline for Fall is September 30th, so hurry! You need to go to the Lily Sarah Grace Fund site to read their rubric on how they "judge" your proposal, and complete the questions they have about your grant.

If they decide to fund your project, it will be FULLY FUNDED in mid-October! That is an amazing gift!

My class is going to read a book, turn it into a play, and perform the play. We asked for theater resources, paint, backdrops, and other art resources for some other smaller projects too.

If you miss the Fall deadline, get ready for the spring deadline! http://lilysarahgrace.org/grants

You might have seen the movie they made of my class a few years ago! I love this organization, and they love me too! :) Here is the link to the movie they made of my class:

http://player.vimeo.com/video/75087660

Welcome to Francie's Focus!

Welcome to my blog, Francie’s Focus. Many of you know me from the DonorsChoose webinars I have worked on with Laura Candler, and my online posts regarding DonorsChoose.

Maybe you are a member of the Caring Classrooms DonorsChoosegiving page or Facebook page that I administer with Laura. I do live and breathe DonorsChoose, and am a TAS screener.
 

I have received wonderful resources for my classroom and my school through DonorsChoose: 132 funded projects and $72,000 in resources. DonorsChoose has become my favorite charity to donate to. I love to help other teachers get their projects funded, and am always donating to my own projects too!

But that is not my only focus for this blog. Instead, I also plan on sharing great ideas and projects I have used in my fifth grade classroom. I hope you will be able to incorporate the ideas and cool math tricks I will be sharing into your classroom.

I always look for great teaching ideas, and tweak them so they fit with my teaching style and classroom. I find no need to “invent the wheel” when there are so many fantastic resources and great ideas out there. I would much rather tweak someone’s idea than start from scratch. Do you agree? If you want a quick look at some ideas I have found online, go to my Pinterest board and follow me.

I am married to an artist, Kerry Kugelman, and our daughter will be off to her first year in college in a few weeks! Our daughter and dog both are much younger in this picture!

This is my 14th year teaching; unfortunately there is not much sharing going on between teachers at my school. Since I love to share ideas, over the years I have sought friendships from online teachers and a few local teachers I have met at professional development training.

I am so glad to welcome you to my blog, and I look forward to sharing great projects and ideas with you, and hearing your ideas too! A huge thank you to Christi Fultz for doing a fantastic job in designing my blog and for Laura Candler for inspiring me to begin blogging.