I teach music in the Bay Area of CA. I was so, so pleased to get a message after matching from my gifter, who told me they grew up in that area and they're great music lovers!! I feel like I work with a lot of parents that don't have any appreciation for the music education their student is receiving, so I already felt awesome just getting a positive, supportive message from my gifter. That was a gift in itself.

Then my packages arrived.

I am so humbled by the generosity my students are about to benefit from. I have special needs students in my classes that aren't comfortable in class or can't physically take part in some of our activities. My strategy has been to use an iPad when an activity or instrument cannot be modified to meet their needs. I have been handing out my own personal iPad in class, and kids have taken it onstage with them to perform. This has been so beneficial to their musical learning but has also been pretty scary for me, handing out my own belongings with my own apps on it! I received TWO iPads for my students to use in class. TWO. I can now reserve my iPad for usage with Class Dojo, something I have always wanted to use but couldn't because I am not given a classroom computer and I needed to keep my iPad free for students. I can assign students an iPad in class and keep fights to a minimum. In my older classes, I can set a student up with an iPad with the program Smart Music so they can do recorder testing while I teach class. I won't have to be afraid that they will go through my iPad and mess with grades, attendance, etc. I can put facebook back on my own iPad to keep in touch with my family!

I can also attach my iPad to the projector I was sent! I am so excited about this!!!! I have no technology in my classroom as a traveling teacher and very much miss the smartboard and desktop computer I had three years ago in my first job. With the addition of this tiny but powerful and sharp projector, I can hook my own iPad up to the projector and put up song lyrics, pictures, diagrams, videos, anything that will help my students understand new concepts. I am not much of an artist and I am so excited to not have to draw everything on the board!!

Last but not least I received a book of songs written by Tolkien and I'm so looking forward to taking these in to class! Last year we sang "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" in the fourth grade classes and my kids were so excited to find out that Tolkien himself wrote music. These current fifth graders will love to sing these new songs and I love teaching anything that will encourage them to read books!

I can't thank you enough. You have changed the lives of so many music students in San Francisco and San Jose. I cried like a baby opening these packages and I'm very glad I didn't open them at school with my older students like I was considering doing, haha. You have enabled me to teach in a way that I can't afford to do myself. Thank you so much for this generous gift.