Grades
K - 12
5 ClassroomsCount™ Ideas for a Successful Campaign
Raise funds to put books, magazines, and products in kids' hands with these great themes.
When you start a ClassroomsCount™ campaign, you have the ability to raise funds through Scholastic to get books, magazines, and products in your students' hands. The more specific teachers are about what they want to raise funds for, the more successful they tend to be.
That said, if you're having trouble deciding what type of campaign to start, take inspiration from other ClassroomsCount™ success stories.
The possibilities are virtually endless, especially since you can spend your funds at:
Here are five ClassroomsCount™ ideas teachers raise funds for — and that you can try, too!
Start your ClassroomsCount™ campaign here.
Many teachers raise funds to give their students books every month of the school year. This keeps students reading with their families and helps to build their home libraries.
“My original goal was to have a monthly book for each child this school year, which is nine months. I ended up getting 11 books for each child, and then some!” says Jenn Marsh, a teacher in Florida.
Tell your friends, family, and community exactly how many books per month you want to get your students. Maybe that's one book per month, or maybe it's two fiction books and one nonfiction book per month!
You can also raise funds for Scholastic Classroom Magazines to bring joy to your learners and build knowledge all year long. No matter what grade you teach, you can use the authentic stories in these magazines to ignite discovery and deepen understanding.
Give readers a fun incentive to contribute to your campaign! By asking friends and family to be "book fairies" for your students, their contributions get books into your students' hands every month.
"Calling it a book fairy campaign really worked," says Carrie McDonald, a teacher in Pennsylvania. "I make cute 'From Your Book Fairy' labels to put inside each book, so parents know it was given through a Scholastic campaign."
Use your ClassroomsCount™ campaign to put a diverse range of books in kids' hands.
Shaniqua Ashby, a teacher in Kentucky, originally set a goal of $300 to purchase a class set of Chains and Blood on the River through her Scholastic campaign. However, when that goal was exceeded quickly, she increased her goal to $500 to get more books for her students — and ended up raising $765 total.
“I was able to get a lot of books with Black and Brown people at the center,” says Ashby. “We’re bursting at the seams right now with books!”
There are two ways you can do this: One option is to ask your friends and family to support your classroom for your birthday. McDonald noted that she was raising money to give students in her kindergarten class books, and told her community that it would be the perfect birthday gift for her 45th birthday when she shared it on social media. Within two hours, her community funded her goal of $180.
Alternatively, you can start a campaign to give each student a book for their birthday throughout the school year. And don't forget the kids with summer birthdays! Give them books on the last day of school!
Another popular campaign theme is raising funds to gift students books before holidays. Campaigns looking to raise funds for Christmas gifts is a popular theme that occurs each year, but you can also raise funds to gift students books for other holidays throughout the year, for example, Halloween or Thanksgiving. You can also celebrate the end of the school year by raising funds to gift every student a graduation gift. This is also a great way to promote summer reading!
If you're looking for a larger-scale project, take a cue from Chrissy Casey, a teacher in Pennsylvania. Casey and three other teachers created a Book-Mobile filled with kids’ favorite reads, which they now drive through local neighborhoods so kids can check out books. It's like a library on wheels!
It took Casey only three weeks to excede her ClassroomsCount™ goal of $1,000.
“Originally, we were going to do the Book-Mobile out of my car, and my husband said, ‘There is no way all those books are going to fit in your car,’” says Chrissy. “So we got a trailer, he built the shelves, and the boxes of books started to roll in.”
Even if you don't create a book-mobile, raising funds with a co-teacher or colleague is a great way to increase funds and spread the word about your goals for your students and classroom.
