With school aged children across the world in different stages of being at school, returning to school and participating online, it’s more important than ever for educators, and parents, to be able to support their well-being.
Peekapak is an award winning, Canadian company that has created a learning platform and online game world dedicated to Social Emotional Learning (SEL), for student, teachers, and parents alike. SEL helps in the development of healthy identities, managing emotions, and showing and feeling empathy – skills that are in high demand during a pandemic. These are skills that help teach kids tactics such as self-regulation, empathy, teamwork and optimism all of which aren’t regularly taught in a traditional classroom.
“With 5.7 million Canadian students being impacted by school closures, an 120% increase in ER visits due to mental health reasons, and ~90% of educators unsure of how to help them, it is no secret that students and educators need accessible mental health tools to get through this pandemic,” says Ami Shah, CEO and Co-Founder of Peekapak.
Peekapak offers educators and parents resources aligned to the Ontario Learning Expectations to help children struggling with pandemic related anxiety, ways to teach about the pandemic, reassurance about vaccines, and the basics of social and emotional skills, like empathy, teamwork and kindness. These resources also support important literacy and writing skill development.
The programs are geared towards elementary aged kids from Pre-K to grade 5, but with growing demand from school boards, the team is launching its middle school program (grades 6-8) this spring. The platform teaches social and emotional skills that integrate with elementary and middle school literacy and language arts instruction time in a fun, engaging and effective way. Since starting, Peekapak has reached over 450k educators, students and families around the world.
According to Mr. Abraham, a teacher in Mississauga, Ontario, “Peekapak created clear impacts on the students throughout the time of the pandemic. The kids who were engaged in Peekapak during Junior Kindergarten, were definitely able to communicate their feelings which is a huge accomplishment. Peekapak also influenced the student’s ability to identify their emotions and more importantly understand that emotions are okay. These students developed the understanding that there is always something they can do to deal with the emotions they feel and lessen the feelings of helplessness.”
Peekapak engages the teacher-student-parent trifecta in a way that stimulates students and provides teachers and parents with a window into a child’s learning. Peekapak’s learning platform currently consists of original storybooks and lesson plans for educators to teach required literacy and ELA instruction while supporting the development of social-emotional learning (SEL).
About Peekapak
Peekapak is an award-winning, literacy-based social-emotional learning (SEL) platform of stories, evidence-based lessons, family activities, and interactive learning games. Peekapak helps overcome barriers to teaching SEL by making learning these skills more accessible, engaging, and measurable for school districts, educators, parents, and students. With its flexible and accessible design that can be easily modified, teachers can effortlessly integrate Peekapak’s ready-to-teach lessons into their planned curriculum. Behind-the-scenes, teachers, and administrators receive real-time reports showing a student’s progress and emotional state. This allows educators to be proactive in helping curve future mental health issues and promote positive well-being in the classroom. Peekapak partners with Nelson Education and works with school boards across Ontario such as Durham Catholic District School Board, Trillium Lakelands District School Board, Avon Maitland District School Board among others.
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