Lea Ann Robinson
SLM 521
Elective- Communication
KeyPals
5 ideas for
using key pals in the 1st grade classrooms
1) During
the maps unit, use keypals to have the children find out information about
other states such as state bird and state tree, population and capital
city. Have the students
place this information on a wall sized map of the
2) To
understand graphing, have the students get information from classes around the
country that can be graphed and compared to their class, such as number of
students in each class, number of boys and girls, ethnic make up. Compare the graphs for different classes and
see the similarities and differences.
3) When
studying life cycles, ask a keypal classroom in another part of the country to
plant the same seeds at the same time.
Collect data or a specified period of time, such as weather, soil
temperature, rain, when the seed sprouts, etc., and compare the results and how
long it takes for the seed to become a plant and then bloom in different areas.
4) Have
students correspond with people of different age groups (10 years older, 20
years older, 30 years older, etc) and find out from them the things that they
had and did not have when they were in first grade, and activities that they
did for fun. Discuss with students what
brought about the changes and what activities are
still fun to 1st graders that were fun before now.
5) As an
end of the year activity, have the students email an e-pal with a list of their
favorite books and ask for the same in return.
If done in pairs or small group, short annotations could be inserted as
well. Then help the students compile a
recommended summer reading list of what their peers in another part of the
country recommended.
After
registering and browsing through the feature on the KeyPal links I found the
following two sites to be the most user friendly.
ePALS Classroom Exchange- Visited
This site is very colorful with lots
of information about ePals and its uses. There are links to articles about the topic
as well. This site allows the potential
user to search for a class or group to link with before registering. This is a nice feature and a time saver. The site describes itself as connecting more
than 103,440 classrooms in 191 countries.
I did a very detailed search and found several classrooms in several
different countries that fit my parameters.
I found this to be the best and easiest to use site of those visited.
Key Pals Club- Visited
This site requires registration before
you can enter any search mode. There is a
link to a page that explains more about the service but not a glimpse of how
extensive the membership might be until you register. The registration process is simple and quick,
and then sends you to a page to search for contacts. I requested a class project with another
first grade classroom without any other parameters and had over 10,000 entries
that fit my criteria! Not only is this
site easy to navigate but has a large network of registrants which should
increase the chances of finding the right key pal for you class.