MKA Third Graders Initiate Fundraising Efforts

One of the clearest examples of an academic curriculum leading to a "real world" understanding could be seen in a recent MKA third grade endeavor. A hallmark of the MKA Primary School experience is student collaboration on the writing and staging of an annual class play.  The third grade class 3R decided to base their production on the inspirational book Listen to the Wind by Greg Mortenson and Susan L. Roth, that tells of Mortenson's experiences in northeastern Pakistan leading to the creation of a local village school, and his subsequent founding of The Central Asia Institute to build similar schools through Pakistan and Afghanistan.

With the assistance of technology-based research, including applications such as Google Earth, students immersed themselves in the geography, culture and customs of Pakistan in order to make the staging of their play as authentic as possible.  In the course of their research, they also discovered that one penny can provide a Pakistani student with a pencil – a simple fact that served as a call to action for the young thespians who decided to launch a Pennies for Peace campaign.

In addition to performing their play, 3R created an iMovie to raise awareness about Mortenson's charity among their fellow Primary School students.  In the course of ten weeks, students from Pre-K-to third grade, together with Primary School faculty and staff, diligently collected pennies prior to a campus "count" at a culminating assembly.  The grand total collected was a remarkable $906.72.

Click here to view photos of the project

click here to read about this on Montclair Patch