Pen pals

One of the things we did last week was write a letter to our pen pal class in Aurora, Colorado.  My bestie happens to be a K teacher too, so we decided that it would be so much fun to be pen pals!  We did the same thing during our first year of teaching when we both taught 1st grade.

My students get soooooo excited when this sign.... 

...switches to THIS sign!

 We read the letter that our Antelope Ridge friends mailed to us, and brainstorm ideas about what we want to write back to them.  I take that time to discuss how we can carry on a conversation through letter-writing by answering their questions and asking new questions to them.  This was the last letter we received from our pen pals that we responded to last week.

After our brainstorm session, I put together the shell of our letter.  I make sure to leave enough fill-in spaces that every student will be able to contribute to the letter.  All students sit with a whiteboard and write each of the items as we go.  They love it (the whiteboard and marker completely hooks them!), and I like that they get practice writing letters and sight words in such a fun way. 

And then we get it in the mail and wait for that sign to switch again!

I had an open wall in my room, so I'm using it to display all of the letters from our Colorado friends.  

Does your class have a pen pal class???