As our second grade class was preparing to do their daily reading routine, one of our students, Narayan '32, noticed a special announcement from Reading A-Z, our reading program.

Reading A-Z has teamed up with UNICEF Kid Power to launch the Learning A-Z and UNICEF Kid Power Classroom Challenge, which is donating meals to the needy in exchange for stars (rewards).

Immediately, Narayan's eyes opened wide, and he enthusiastically said, "We can donate our stars for meals to the needy!" Before I could comprehend what he was talking about, he had donated most of his stars in exchange for three meals. Within a few minutes, he had sold the idea to the rest of the class and we were embarking on our campaign to get not only our classroom into this beautiful journey but the entire Lower School!

So, let me backtrack a little bit so you can better understand how beautiful this story is. When children read and answer questions, the program gives them stars as an incentive, which they can use to play a game and purchase clothing for their robot or furniture for their house. My class decided, unanimously, to give up their playing rewards and donate their stars for meals to the needy. What a glowing moment this was. Everyone was cheering and enthusiastically rejoicing at the idea that they could make a difference!

Immediately, we started doing our additions and subtractions to calculate how many books we needed to read in order to accomplish our goal as a classroom. We are going for 30 meals or 240,00 stars! They practiced their presentation skills and their Spanish by going to MABC and introducing their idea to our community, and the rest of the class visited each SIP classroom in the Lower School to present the idea in a more personal way.

As another student, Iris '32, said ..."not only do we work and learn but we also help our community." I am very proud of every single one of them. ¡Segundo grado es una estrella!