Fourth Grade Pen Pals with Kenya

My fourth-grade class started a pen pal program with a school in a village near Nakuru, Kenya. Every student got a buddy, and we sent letters back and forth all year.

The kids learned so much. That their pen pals walk forty minutes to school. That they love soccer, too. That one of them has a goat named Obama. That they eat ugali, which my kids then begged me to make in class (we did, it was a hit).

The Kenyan students learned that my class has a pet guinea pig, that one boy can burp the alphabet and that snow is cold, which apparently was a big surprise.

At the end of the year, we did a video call. Thirty kids on each side, waving, shouting, laughing. They sang songs to each other. My students cried when it ended. They've already asked if they can keep writing next year. Of course they can.