We have gone through five rounds of letters between the students and the residents at WT. It has been a really neat experience getting to meet a bunch of different people and build relationships with them. Both the kids and the elders loved this program. A few partners were able to learn about each other, while most other pairs were more of a one way conversation.
Jordan and I arranged an opportunity for the residents at WT to come to the elementary school and meet their pen pals! We are having a bingo game along with some snacks and drinks. We are really excited to see how this turns out! I know the kids are very anxious to meet their pen pals. Throughout this project, I have learned many valuable lessons. I had to learn how to use my time diligently and plan accordingly in order to stay on our timeline. Because this program was our idea, Jordan and I had to come up with the workings of it. It was a little rocky at first, trying to get partners paired, how we are going to effectively deliver letters, etc. In the end, the program ran smoothly and definitely has the opportunity to get bigger with more time. I really hope a group picks this project up where we left it and continues to improve it! It is really fun to work with people of all ages and learn about their lives.
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We have gotten through another round of letters! We had a few people from WT write back to the kids, which made their day. This time, we let the kids try to write without a prompt which didn't work as well as we hoped. They asked us what they should write about a lot, but they eventually took over themselves.
Next week, Jordan and I have to type up all of the letters, print them out and get them ready to be delivered to Woodland Terrace by Wednesday! We have delivered two rounds of letters to the residents at WT. We give the 4th graders a prompt to write from and that works out well. It makes the process go quickly and smoothly. The high schoolers know what they are doing, so we let them write what they want. We type out all of the letters in case their pals have trouble reading their handwriting. The first round of letters were introductions. A quick recap about them and what they enjoy doing and what they are learning in school that week. Two days ago, we dropped of the second round of letters and picked up the responses. We did not receive many letters back from the WT residents, but I know they enjoy reading them.
The second round was about what they did over spring break and what they are doing in school now. We delivered the participation letters to the woodland terrace residents. We were only able to talk to four of them because it took a long time. The rest of the letters were dropped off in their mailboxes. Today, Jordan and I dropped off the first rounds of letters to the WT residents! We are super excited to see how it goes!
We have 21 elementary and high schoolers that are paired up with 18 Woodland Terrace residents. We are going to the elementary school today to help the kids write their letters. We made a template for them to make the process easier. We also made a letter to the residents at Woodland Terrace to inform them of our project. Before any of the letters can be delivered to the residents, Caralee needs to read them and give us the okay to send them.
Jordan and I went to Mrs. Shepler's 4th grade class room at New Palestine Elementary to recruit kids to join our program. We made a questionnaire for them to fill out in order to pair up buddies based on interests. So far, we have 13 kids from that class. We also have 3 high school seniors who want to join the program. We called and set up a meeting with Caralee, the life enrichment coordinator at woodland terrace, to pair up pals.
Jordan Brittsan and I are teaming up to start a pen pal program with the residents of woodland terrace and the high schoolers. We are in the beginning stages of figuring out how to make it work, but we scheduled a meeting with the life enrichment coordinator, Caralee Griffith on Thursday.
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May 2018
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