Students from Benjamin Franklin and George Washington elementary schools met face to face for the first time on May 14, capping months of written correspondence as part of a year-long pen pal program connecting first graders from both schools.
The visit, known as Pen Pal Day, brought Washington students to Ben Franklin, where the young writers finally got to put faces to the names they had been exchanging letters with throughout the school year. Students were matched with their pen pals using stuffed animals, with each child finding their counterpart before leaving their animal on their pen pal's desk.
Students then rotated through three cooperative activity stations, each lasting approximately 20 minutes. At the parachute station, students played group games using a parachute, a ball, and balloons. The hula hoop challenge required students to form a circle and pass a hula hoop around the group without breaking the chain. At the egg pass station, students worked together to move an egg from person to person using tubes without letting it touch the ground. Afterward, students had free time to play together in the gym and pose for a group photo before Washington students collected their belongings and headed back to their school.
The pen pal program paired students from the two schools at the start of the academic year, giving them the opportunity to develop their writing skills and build connections with peers outside their own school community. The in-person meeting marked the culmination of that correspondence — and a preview of what's ahead. This fall, the students will reunite as classmates at Bethel Park Elementary School, which opens in September, where they will be joined by students from Abraham Lincoln, William Penn, and Memorial elementary schools.
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