International Pen Pals

Letter writing is an essential thing for fourth graders to learn. Knowing this, I wanted my students in Richmond to feel a sense of purpose when writing a letter to another person. With this notion, our class decided that we would write letters to the children I work with in Nicaragua. Boy was this a success with the Yahoskas! Each Yahoska received one or two letters, depending on their writing ability and age, to read and then respond to. The girls were ecstatic to receive letters from my students! Half of the letters were in Spanish (as half of my students came out of the bilingual program and have the ability to write in Spanish) and half of my students wrote in English. For the letters in English, Nour, Gloria, and I spent large amounts of time translating the letters to each individual girl. With the ittie bittie Yahoskas, we sat with each of them and helped them to write their letters - it was great allowing them the time to think through their life experiences and develop letters that describe their 7 year old lives in Nicaragua.

I can't wait to throw my previous 4th grade students in Richmond, who are now big fifth graders, a Nicaragua party during lunch so that they can see the pictures of the girls receiving the donations the collected, ad well as receive their pen pal letters!