If you use grandparents, be on the alert for those children who do not have grandparents to be their penpals so that you can employ parents or others to substitute for grandparents. Of course, most kindergartners and first graders do not have all the skills for letter writing. See the lesson Sentence Banners for directions on using this idea. Discuss with students things they would like to tell their penpals about themselves and things they would like to know about their penpals. Some sentences will have blanks so that the students can fill in personal information.
Students can help make the banners or continue regular classwork.
Letters and Stationery Help students at the computer to make personalized stationery with graphics of their choice, their name, and the school address. You might want to put some older students to work helping your students with the personalized stationary. Have the sentence banners posted around the room. Students, if they need them, can use the sentence banners to help them with their letter writing. As students finish, help them print the letter on their personal stationery.