If you don’t have a Kindle to donate, please don’t feel left out. Remember that the Kindle Classroom Project is a reading project, not a technology project!
Here are a few ways to become a sustaining, lasting donor to the Kindle Classroom Project. Choose one and then scroll to the bottom to donate!
For the Book Lover
A Kindle with no books is just an empty electronic device. The power of the Kindle Classroom Project is that students get to request books they want to read. Because of generous donors, I quickly buy these requested books and deliver them directly to the students’ Kindles. It’s like magic. For $10 a month, you can connect one student with a book that may change his or her life. Even better: Each book goes into the Kindle Library, accessible to all 225+ students participating in the program. Make a $10 monthly donation below!
For the News Junkie
I love waking up and retrieving my newspaper from the front steps every morning. Though I love my Kindle, I prefer reading the New York Times in print. It turns out, students in Kathleen Large’s classroom at Leadership High School also love to read the New York Times. They vie for Kathleen’s lone copy, taking turns, following key stories, and getting to know their world better. A print subscription is $15 a month. An e-subscription, which lacks the newsprint but allows the newspaper to be shared among six students, is $20 a month. The other cool thing about the e-subscription is that it gets delivered automatically every morning as students wake up. Make a $15 or $20 monthly donation below!
Make a Kindle Come to Life
There are two features to Kindles that are inferior to physical books: (1) They are occasionally fragile, (2) They need charging every week or so. The problem is, Amazon no longer includes power adapters with new Kindles. That means that generous donors often send me their Kindles without plugs. To bridge the power adapter gap, I buy chargers at $6 each. Once a Kindle has its power cord and adapter, it’s ready to go to a student. Make a $6 monthly donation below!
For the Storyteller
For some students, silent reading is not easy. The page just has too many words, and all the text is overwhelming. The magic of a story is unlocked only when someone is telling it out loud. Several Kindle models (Kindle 2, Kindle 3, Kindle Touch, Kindle Fire) come equipped with a text-to-speech feature, but the voice is robotic. Though I’ve gotten used to it, most students prefer a real human. A relatively new feature at Amazon is called “immersion reading,” where students can follow along reading a book while a professional narrator reads out loud. An Audible subscription is $15 a month. This will ensure at least one audiobook per month. (It could be more than 1 book: Sometimes you can add professional narration for cheaper when you buy the e-book at the same time.) Make a $15 monthly donation below! (And thanks to Susan, my new friend on Twitter, for helping me with this!)
How to Donate
The easiest way is through PayPal. Click on the Donate button below. (Sorry for all the blank space.)
(Be sure to click on “Make This Recurring (Monthly)” — here’s a screenshot. Also, once you’re into PayPal, there is a Comments and Questions link. Click that so you can let me know how you’d like me to spend your donation!)
You see? You don’t need to donate a Kindle to become a sustaining donor to the Kindle Classroom Project. There are many options. I can’t wait to see who is ready to make the plunge!