TNH kids penfriends/swaps

I had thought about something similar but then just let it go but I was wanting to do it for the same reasons............penmanship and just writing letters instead of the internet and so on.

I am game and DSalmost7 said he is too!

Jana

Her KG class started a penpal thing with another KG class in the burbs. But they write letters as a class rather than individually, which disappoints her.

I do think for younger kids (like mine) a bit of a prompt would help -- like "what do you usually eat for dinner," or "what movies do you like" or whatever. It would be a great schooling thing for us to seek out things that would help someone learn about where we live, apart from hearing about others.

And I'm all for penmanship practice for her -- she likes to dash things off sometimes and it is hard to read! She would like this better than my plans -- copying into a notebook!

Shaun
"Home is not the one tame place in a world of adventure; it is the one wild place in a world of rules and set tasks."
   -- G. K. Chesterton

Honey,

I would be up for it with my DD6. I think it would be great fun!

Andrea

Should we make it an ongoing thing - like maybe we pair the children by age and they write back and forth?

Or we could make it more like a one off swap type thing, where each child would put together maybe a letter, picture, information about their family and life and swap it with another child. That way everyone could 'swap' with everyone else, eventually.

I think when a child is writing to a child of a very different age range, maybe the one off type thing is more appropriate, but for age-mates they could maybe continue the correspondence.

Has anyone heard of flat travellers? It is based on the book 'Flat Stanley', in which Stanley is squashed flat by a bulletin board and his parents send him in the mail to visit his friends! You make a flat person/people (like a paper doll type thing, either drawn or from a photo) and send it to your 'host' family. That family keep your 'flat traveller' for a week or two and then send it back, with a journal of its adventures during the time with them! You could include small items of interest, photos etc if you wanted to.

Maybe we could start with a flat traveller type thing, and those that wanted to could continue the correspondence? Or we could do both?

I'm just bouncing ideas around really. What do you think?

Wow Honey you are full of ideas!

I don't know - I know that my DD6 would love to correspond with another girl about her ago - she would like it more to have the same kid I think. But maybe I'm wrong. I haven't asked DS8 yet.

You know, I think most of us would trust you to "set it up" for us, right everyone!

That flat traveller thing sounds cool though, because we could involve everyone!

Andrea

would probably do better with one or two set penpals, rather than trying to get their heads round a larger group. I know for my two, they wouldn't be motivated unless they knew the person, or knew something about them, had photos, that kind of thing. The younger ones can't so easily get up the enthusiasm for abstracts. The idea of penpals has been mooted here recently because of DD leaving her friends. But they'd need more prompting than the self-motivated teens.

on the whole though, not a bad idea. But I think your DS Honey, might already have two that would like to write to him, and that could defeat the purpose!!!

Kerri.

The Flat Traveller sounds fun!

Jana