So Far, So Close

Related subjects or curricular areas: Social Studies, Foreign Languages

Grade 3, Public School 48, Staten Island, and grade 5, San Gabriel School, Trápaga

Teachers: Rakel Tabernilla and Ms. Ziel

Artists: Jeff Hopkins and Elssie Ansareo

Language: English

Kids from two different schools, one in Trápaga and the other in Staten Island, New York, exchanged emails for six months. In their emails, they shared information and photos of their art projects, as well as data about their school environments to find similarities and differences. This helped them develop writing skills in English, checking for themselves how useful this language could be when making new friends, especially if they were far away and different from themselves. Or perhaps they were not that different…

Email excerpt: “Thank you so much for your emails and photos. They’ve given us so much inspiration and joy!”