Read to Feed Coming Soon!

I really like Read to Feed. Have you heard of it? It is an action program from Heifer International that seems a perfect fit for Summers-Knoll. Like our school, it emphasizes global education and is a service-learning program. We've been doing this for many years in our classroom, using in October, and it has always been a successful way to jump start children's reading progress, too!

This is the way it works: Children learn about the difference they can make for a family (either here or in another country) by donating an animal of their choice. We start by reading a great and true story called Beatrice's Goat. This is the story of a little girl in an eastern African village whose life is changed dramatically by a gift of two goats. These goats provide enough income to enable Beatrice to go to school – and, more importantly – their offspring then go to other families in a widening circle of hope. Immediately after I read this, children invariably want to know how they can help. This is when I introduce the concept of Read to Feed. (Alton Brown does a good job of explaining it in the above video.)

This money raising bit can be done in any number of ways. I usually leave it up to individual families to decide. Most families pledge a certain amount for each book or each time period their child reads with them. I will also pledge a minimal amount for each book read – it can’t be much, because I will be donating to 10 children!

I would like to do this for a four-week period. We will start the second week of October. A packet of information will be coming home on Friday, October 4^th. The reading logs and pledges will be due on Monday, November 4^th.