Preferred Partner Highlight: Peekapak
Co-founders, Ami and Angie, have been best friends for over 20 years. Ami’s dedication to education has led her to teach underprivileged children in Vietnam and India, and pursue her MBA with a focus on international business and entrepreneurship, with educational change in mind. Angie’s passion for writing stories that impact the way children learn, live and think has created excitement in the classrooms. “They loved reading the stories and learning about the characters. It’s been easy for my kids to pick up on the stories, pick up on the feelings; the characters have facial expressions, the artwork is beautiful, and they really get it.” – Kristie O., teacher.
When we started Peekapak, our first product was a monthly subscription box, much like a Birchbox for kids’ education. When we joined the Imagine K12 accelerator (the edtech wing of Y Combinator) in Silicon Valley, we had the opportunity to test our product in many classrooms. From speaking to teachers, we ended up discovering a larger opportunity to digitize our content and move towards building an online learning platform that focused on social-emotional learning – something our original product emphasized, but which we weren’t aware of at the time. This was a huge pivot from our first business model and has allowed us to reach and impact many, many more children.
The Vision
This may sound like a lofty goal, but we started Peekapak with the desire to make a difference in the lives of today's children. We were aware of the huge achievement gap in North American schools. Millions of children in the US (and around the world) do not have the means and resources to break out of a cycle of poverty. One way to combat the achievement gap is to ensure that all children have access to high quality books and curriculum, regardless of the resources of their teacher, school and family, and that they are taught the skills for lifelong success (including teamwork, perseverance, self-regulation, and empathy – all topics taught through Peekapak’s curriculum). Studies show that students apt in social-emotional skills face fewer incidences of bullying, school dropouts, depression and violence. Another way to help children is to make sure their parents are involved in their learning process – a fundamental step in ensuring student learning and well being, and one which we have built our product around.
We speak to teachers every day and test our product out in real classrooms. Since launching, we've spoken to over 300 teachers, parents and experts in early childhood learning. We have fantastic partners with experts in the field who are able to guide us and we hear from teachers daily about how Peekapak is impacting their students. We research market trends in education and we synthesize all our learning to design the next exciting evolution of Peekapak, aimed at delighting children and helping to make teaching social-emotional learning more impactful and also easier for teachers and parents.
The Future
Countless research studies have proven the impact social-emotional learning has on a young child’s development … and that these impacts are far-reaching, staying with them throughout their lives. Young children who learn how to persevere, show gratitude and respect, feel empathy, and work well in teams have higher likelihoods of graduating from college, finding jobs, and forming positive relationships. It’s incredible just how important social-emotional learning is! That’s why the biggest dream that I hope to accomplish in the future is for Peekapak to touch the lives of every single child in this world and to make a positive impact on their future.
The Testimonial
We connected with Paula Naugle, a 4th grade teacher from Louisiana, to share her experience using Peekapak.
How did you learn about Peekapak? I learned about Peepapak from Ami Shah, one of the co-founders, at ISTE 2016 in Denver.
How do you utilize Peekapak in your classroom? What are the benefits? I display the Peekapak book on the social-emotional topic we are currently learning on my interactive whiteboard and together as a class we read the chapters needed for the lesson we are doing that day. Each Peekapak book includes four lessons and each lesson has two sessions. All of the steps I need to accomplish to complete each lesson are clearly stated, are aligned to the ELA Common Core State Standards and list which of the 4Cs are included (communication, collaboration, creativity, critical thinking). We then work through the three parts of the Peekapak lesson which include: activity implementation, accommodations and modifications, and extensions.
The benefits of using Peekapak with my students are the rich discussions that reading the books and doing the lessons leads to. I teach in a high poverty school and nearly half of my students are English Language Learners. We now share a common language about social-emotional topics like courage, optimism, self-regulation, and teamwork. My students are feeling better about themselves and love being a part of our sharing and caring learning community.
What would you say to another teacher who may be hesitant about trying a new #edtech product in their classroom? I am so glad I discovered Peekapak and can share it with my students as we address various social-emotional topics that need to be taught in the world our students find themselves facing today. The fact that each topic is literacy-based, backed by research, Common Core aligned, and fully developed with all of the extra materials readily available, makes Peekapak a must-have program when teaching these all-important topics.
If you have any questions, email us at info@pledgecents.com.
