Pen Pal

hi -
What a great idea :) I remember when I was little I wrote to a girl on an Indian reservation in South Dakota. I have fond memories of our exchanges. I think it was through UNICEF (who no longer is organizing pen pals).
I got this info on the UNICEF website:
World Pen Pals, P.O. Box 337, Saugerties, NY 12477. You may also call them at ###-###-#### http://www.world-pen-pals.com/

Good luck!

good luck

I don't know of any but I too have a son who 7 1/2 who could use alot of practice writing and the pen pal idea sounds awesome!!! let me know what you find out... or maybe we could get our boys to write to each other?...

I had one when I was younger through something I saw on TV ... Big Blue Marble, I think is what it was called. But that was in the late 70s/early 80s and is probably long gone. What a wonderful thing to encourage! I built a life-long friendship with my pen pal and even went to stay with her family in Sweden for a summer as an exchange student when I was 16. We're still friends now that we're in our 40s.

Amazing Kids! PenPals (http://amazing-kids.org) is a safe, literacy-based traditional letter writing pen pals program. Since 2005, we have successfully matched over 5,000 students with new pen pals.

Check out our information page on our website and feel free to contact us with any questions...We'd love to help your children find new pen pal friends! :-)

Here is an additional/alternate idea that I came across in recent months. I read about one mom having her child write to favorite celebrities and talk about movies he liked that they starred in, good things they have done for the community, etc. He would ask for autographed pics, etc. I believe she also purchased a book that provides info on free stuff for kids. It gives you addresses of companies to write to. I have seen those books before. They should be easy to find online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and the like.

I do not think that being a pen pal is a good idea. I think it would open the door to allow him to talk and be open with strangers. When he is old enough It might encourage him to go and seek websites where people chat freely. Those sites are unsafe for almost everyone.
(Sex offenders) roam those sites looking for prey.

If you want him to write more you can encourage him to write a story and illustrate his pictures and then you can have it turned into a book.
My daughter did this for two years in a row in the public school system.

Here is the company's name:

Nationwide Learning, Inc.
PO Box 5263
Topeka, KS 66605-0263

" Motivating Students To Learn Through Publishing".

http://www.nationwide-learning.com/

When we did it I think it only cost about $7 or $8 dollars a book, we ordered a few extra books to share with our family.

These are just my thoughts.

God Bless

I know when I was young our local library had a list that I think came from other libraries around the country. I'm not sure that any them do this anymore though. My son is also 8 and would love to get mail...probably bored with the writing aspect though lol! We're working on Thank You cards right now and that's a bit of a struggle since the weather is getting nice! I'm interested to see what you find.

Maybe he can be a pen pal to a soldier? I googled and found http://www.penpalsforsoldiers.org. Obviously you'll need to be involved as he'll be writing to an adult, but it seems like it would be a win/win/win for all of you :)

the suggestion of being a penpal for a soldier is good. another good option is to find someone from a church of the same religion as yours. when my kids were in 4th grade or so the teacher had set up a program with the 4th grade in another catholic school in the next town over. the kids wrote back and forth all year long and had a field trip at the end to meet the other child. it was fun for all of them.