Have you heard that as a student of Learning A-Z including Raz-Kids, you can donate your stars for families in need? You may think that it will be fun when you can help others in need by just doing good activities such as reading books, listening to them and completing the activities. How to do it and why Raz Kids can give this chance to their students?
The Steps to Donate Stars on Raz-Kids
Do you want to donate stars on Raz-Kids? It is a good thing to do. If you want to do that, here are the steps that you are able to do.
- The first thing that you have to do to donate stars on Raz-Kids is to log into your Raz-Kids account.
- After that, You have to access the Star Zone.
- In the Star Zone page, there is a Star Donation option. Click on it and you will be taken to a page where it says that you can use your stars to buy something for those in need.
- Click the button to donate on that page and then you will be asked whether you are sure that you want to donate. If you are sure, you can click on the Yes button.
- After you donate your stars by clicking on the Yes button in the confirmation, then you will be taken to a page which says, “Great Job! You are making a difference. Keep up the good work.”
The Reason Raz Kids Offers Donation to Students
According to the website of Learning A-Z in an article entitled Giving Back: Motivating Students Through a Sense of Purpose by Troy Hickerson who is a Cofounder UNICEF Kid Power, kids have energy and they can use their energy to help others. Kids do not have jobs and they cannot earn much money by themselves. However, they can move with their energy and they have a sense of agency over a lot of their actions. This is called Kid Power.
Years ago, as also explained in the article, they are designing the UNICEF Kid Power platform. They did some third-party research with the Games Institute in Santa Barbara and the University of Arizona. The thing that they found from the research, when they connect a deep sense of purpose to an outcome which is something kids can get excited about, kids are 55% more active to work toward that outcome. Giving children goals by getting them actively doing good is still the core principle of UNICEF Kid Power.
As we know that kids often ask ‘Why’. They ask ‘why’ because they want to find the answer, a reason or a purpose behind what they are experiencing or what they are supposed to be doing. So, by embedding a sense of purpose in kids, it will motivate them. If the purpose is deep and meaningful, kids feel a stronger sense of classroom community and they will be more motivated.
If we are able to use that deep sense of purpose to get kids more active in boosting their own literacy skills, social-emotional learning competencies, or physical activity, it will be a good thing. So, Learning A-Z has partnered with UNICEF Kid Power to be able to use this sense of purpose that is owned by kids to be able to donate to others. For students who use Raz-Kids, Raz-Plus, Headsprout, Science A-Z, Vocabulary A-Z, and Writing A-Z, they are able to convert the stars that they earned into virtual coins that they are able to redeem to provide meals for local families in need.
According to the article, when they go to publication at that time, there are more than one million stars which have been donated. It means that this works well. It means they can give more than 500 meals for people in need. By involving the whole classroom in giving back through the Learning A-Z and UNICEF Kid Power platforms, you are able to empower your students to have agency over their own learning and keep them motivated to learn through a deep, meaningful sense of purpose and community.
According to the website of Learning A-Z in an article entitled Students Break Donation Record and Help Families in Need Through UNICEF Kid Power Partnership, it is explained that in 2020, Learning A-Z students throughout the United States took part in Learning A-Z/ UNICEF Classroom Challenge and they donated more than half a billion stars and delivered almost 90,000 meals to hungry families in the US.
In 2021, from March 4 to April 30, the students of Learning A-Z around the world made a combined total of 430,273 donations and it used 3.4 billion stars. These stars were earned by students by reading books and completing activities on the Learning A-Z platform. Then, they converted their stars into critical aid packets and it enabled them to make a positive impact on the world around them.
As explained in the article, because of the students’ hard work in 2021, they could provide 260,633 healthy meals to families in the US and more than 1.6 million days of clean water to communities around the world.
Troy Hickerson said that these were kids helping other kids, which was very rewarding for students. He also said that some students did not believe that they could be in a position to help others, so when they got to really experience that, they were truly empowered.
Lisa O’Masta, the president of Learning A-Z said that giving students a greater sense of purpose increased their engagement and motivated them to reach new heights in their learning. Furthermore, she also said that they were thrilled to see the learning gains and the impact students made last fall and they were excited to partner with UNICEF Kid Power to give students an opportunity to make a difference again this spring.
For your information, from March 5 to April 30, 2021, Learning A-Z students donated stars to be able to help others. Students could exceed each and every one of donation goals and those included the final extended goal of 400K donations. In the United States, the students of Learning A-Z donated meals to hungry U.S. families. Clean water was also donated by students of Learning A-Z outside the U.S. to families and communities most in need worldwide.
