Friday, July 1, 2011
Pen Pals
My daughter is also a 3rd grade teacher. We thought it would be great fun to have our students be pen pals with each other this past year. It was an amazing experience! We started at the beginning of the year and continued on until the end of the year. Pictures, cards, and small gifts were exchanged while friendships were made. I have long been looking for a good way to give more meaning to letter-writing instruction, and this did it. We plan to continue doing this each year. I would recommend this to any 3rd grade teacher. Find another class your students can write to and see how much fun they can have while they are learning the art of letter-writing.
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Sandra,
ReplyDeleteEven in high school, pen pals can be great. My youngest daughter was a host to a Japanese student when she was in high school. Although they communicated through e-mail and face book I consider that to be letter writing too. Since my princpal wants every teacher to have students write, I think writing to pen pals in a similar class at another school would be a great idea. I'm glad you brought it up on your blog.
Jennifer
I'm moving to 2nd from 6th this year. Do you think it would be possible to do this with 2nd graders? I'm feeling very out of touch when it comes to the lower grades....however I'm very excited!! Even if it's not to another state or country....maybe a different classroom or school?
ReplyDeleteI've done this type of pen pal exchange for many years. However, with middle school students who are academically challenged, it became difficult. I would be assigned a class in another state and they worked on much higher levels than we did so correspondence was hard. The other pen pal class complained that my students did not know how to write and their interests were totally differently. They were also economically different. What I thought might be a learning experience, caused hurt feelings and aggravation. So be careful and/or knowledgeable of the differences. It could be a great time to teach tolerance. :)
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