Keypals: Ideas you can use with First Graders

1. We teach letter writing in first grade. If each student gets a pen-pal, what better way would there be to practice letter writing skills in an authentic way? Students will be able to read and respond to other’s work. Even if you don’t have another class in another school to email, you could set up email buddies within the classroom.

2. Exploring different parts of the United States or the world would be a good activity between two classes. Each class can share something special about the world they live in.

3. To incorporate math, get a class to email data about themselves. Then you can compare and contrast your class’s data to theirs.

4. Do book reviews. Have the students send books that they recommend to each other. That will get them excited to read something new.

5. Ask an Expert: Students can email experts to learn new and exciting things that will enrich what we are learning in the classroom.

Welcome to Pitsco’s Ask an Expert!

http://www.askanexpert.com/

On this website you can select and search for different categories that the experts are experts in. There are also many different animal experts, which will come in handy when my students are doing animal research projects. This would give them another way to gain information. This site was very easy to use, had great graphics, and was well labeled. Best of all it is free!

ePALS Classroom Exchange

http://www.epals.com/

This site was the easiest to navigate and find information. It also has a lot of bonus features like blogging and mentoring that would be great for all students. The email has a translator so that you could communicate with people who speak a different language. There are two different programs: ePALS School Mail (which costs money) and the ePALS Global Network (that doesn’t). The free site will allow you to create 35 email accounts, which could be pretty generic so that each year a new student could take over that account. It also has a place where you can download a packet for parents, which have a parental consent form in it. I registered for an account, and will try to use it next year.