Photo: Stafford Public Safety Services Students with Northeast School First Graders
All the students atStafford Technical Center this year have had pen pals in the first grade this year. The program, developed by Stafford English teacher Melissa Patterson, is designed to improve the writing skills of both groups of students and to instill a love of the long-lost art of letter writing. The Public Safety Services Program at Stafford was matched with Mrs. Jennifer Pew’s Northeast School first grade class. Each high school student wrote to his or her pen pal about 5 times during the year, and got a letter in return.
At the end of the school year, the high school juniors and seniors visited their pen pals at Northeast School. The first graders showed their friends their desks, some of the work that they did in the first grade, how they can write their names on the whiteboards, and other fun things that they have done in school. Afterwards, the pen pals went out on the playground and had a great time getting to know each other.
All in all, this experience was a wonderful opportunity, and both groups learned quite a bit from the experience. Everyone is looking forward to doing this again next year. The members of Mrs. Pew’s first grade class that got to meet their pen pals were: Karsyn Bellomo, Marleigh Cary, Max Crowley, Damien Hewitt, Kyle Kravitz, Jaryn Mazzariello-Peer, Naudia McAuley, Griffin Melen, Samantha Neilson, Ryan Pare, Jillian Perry, Mason Porter, Carmen Ragins, Aiden Reitz, Grace Stoutes, Cayley Tanner, Stephanie Walton, and Emma Worton. Their high school pals were: Kody Baker, Megan Barber, Colton Benoit, Logan Clark, Alison DeRoy, Brandon Ellis, Zachary Field, Chelsea Fitzgerald, Dylan Goad, Aaron Hildebrand, Porsche Lowell, Tyler Manning, Stephen Marcoux, Brian Raiche, Kim Rupe, Kayla Temple, Vincent Venturella, and Brian Ward.