Students from Ms. O's Providence, RI class need mathy materials

UPDATE 2/14 10:45am ET:

Here comes our big, sloppy PDA moment--public displays of appreciation, of course, for teachers inspiring the geeks of tomorrow with small budgets and big plans.

In all, 535 projects were nominated and ~3,000 votes were cast in this year's Project Geek<3. Because some of the projects in our top 5 had such large dollar amounts left to go, we decided to split our $1,000 donation between them, rather than completing the first, then moving on to the second, and so on. We think this will be a better way to spread the geek<3, and perhaps some of our readers will be inspired to donate as well...? WONDER GEEK POWERS, ACTIVATE!

So without further ado, our top five classrooms receiving $200 each are:

1. Kinder Pad, Mrs. R.'s classroom in San Fernando, California wants an iPad to use during class activities ($501 to go)
2. Learning in Living Color: LCD Projector, Ms. H.'s classroom in Chatsworth, California needs a basic projector (completed!)
3. ActivSlate For Active Kids!, Mrs. C.'s classroom in Dillon, South Carolina wants to better use their Promethean Board ($47 to go)
4. Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road? To Lay Another Egg!, Mrs. W.'s classroom in Auburn, Illinois wants to incubate a chicken (completed!)
5. Listening Stations For 4th Graders, Mrs. M.'s classroom in Mascotte, Florida wants to improve group reading sessions ($246 to go)

And because our #2 and #4 winners were so close to completion, we had a bit leftover. Thus we randomly drew a project from the stack and found that we could then fund:

6. Feeling The Fractions With Mini Tiles, Mr. C.'s classroom in Rialto, California needs tiles to help visually and physically understand the concept of fractions ($29 to go)

And our randomly chosen $100 gift certificate winner is Linda H in San Antonio, TX. We'll be contacting you via email soon, Linda!

Thanks to our voters, and thanks especially to those hardworking teachers out there making do while inspiring geeklings!

P.S.: We already heard back from Mrs. W., who has her incubator project funded! She writes,

Dear ThinkGeek,
I am so excited!!! Right now my children are at gym but I cannot wait to share with them that our project was funded! They will be so excited to know that we get to have the incubator and hatch baby chicks this spring! This was the best Valentine's Day gift ever!!! Without companies and individuals supporting teachers, great projects like this would not be happening in classrooms around the U.S. Students and teachers are so blessed to have you helping us teach and learn! Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
With gratitude,
Mrs. W.

Talk about warm fuzzies on Valentine's Day. <3 <3 <3

Original entry, posted 2/7:

Calling all robo-cupids and friends of Timmy!

For the third year in a row we're donating to DonorsChoose.org during project Geek<3, our little Valentine's Day tribute to geeklings still in school. And we need your help choosing which needy classrooms should get a little love.

This year we're donating a total of $1,000 to classrooms as part of year-long goal to give $1,000 a month to charitable organizations during 2011. Your votes will determine which classrooms we give to, in order of popularity, until we hit the $1,000 mark.

And your vote will enter you to win a $100 gift certificate. But we know you'll vote because that's the right thing to do, not because you want stuff. Right? Right.

How to vote (and enter to win):

1. Go to DonorsChoose.org and find a classroom you think needs some geek <3ing. Make a note of the classroom id. For example, if the classroom's url is
   

   http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=500537

   the ID is #500537. We're suckers for the Math & Sciences section, naturally, but don't let that stop you from perusing the rest.
2. Tweet to @thinkgeek (that's us!) the ID number being sure to include the tag #geek<3 somewhere in your tweet so we'll count it as a vote. If you don't include the #geek<3 tag, we might miss it and you won't be entered to win. (Yes, hashtag police, we know Twitter doesn't much like the less than sign, but it doesn't matter; we're using our own hashtagparse-o-bot.) Please vote via Twitter only once a day.
3. Or, if you're not into Twitter, use this form to enter: VOTING IS NOW CLOSED. The form has been exterminated.
4. Vote by 6pm ET on Friday, February 11! Votes after that will go poof into the great nothingness, though we're sure you meant well.

We'll tally up the votes on Valentine's Day and announce the classrooms we'll fund--along with our $100 gift certificate winner--here on the blog, Twitter, and Facebook.

So pull on those circuit board wings and solder your bow and arrow--go pick some classrooms and vote!