Day 9 Pen Pals

by Chante
(IN)

One thing I can say about our home school, our children will never forget the value of the U.S. Postal Service.

Just recently they've accumulated pen pals from all over the country. These pen pals come from different walks of life. It's been fun to use the information gathered from the letters to pinpoint where in the U.S. their letter is going. They look forward to getting mail and answering back. We make sure we fit letter writing in our day so our pals aren't forgotten. Most of the time the letters are just waiting for a stamp.

I look forward to the geography as well as handwriting lesson. Their handwriting has seemed to get better with practice, although their styles are something you just can't change. My older two started off writing cursive when they were little (fingers in salt thrown in a shoebox) and now they're getting more proficient. I've always wanted to use Cursive First, but I don't think we've needed it.

Grammar lessons abound through their pen pal writing. I like how any corrections seem informal and not as tough for them as opposed to when we had full out handwriting sessions. We don't rely primarily on pan pal letters for handwriting, but they do serve to reinforce what has been taught through Spell to Write and Read.

So far, my oldest girl has four pals, my oldest son has two, even the 3yo. has a pal! She couldn't stand being left out of the loop. It just so happened that a Mama on The Homeschool Lounge wanted a pal for her 3yo and we hooked up! They just exchange pics right now, but soon they'll be writing too! Speaking of which, she hasn't sent a pic in a while. Time to go revive the lines of communication!