DEAR PEN PAL: WRITING LETTERS TO A PEN PAL IS A LESSON IN PATIENCE

Mary Livingston pointed out the parts in a friendly letter during her third-grade class at Woodland Elementary School.

Jill Cowell from Woodland Elementary School wrote a letter to her pen pal Heather Ross who attends Delta Elementary.

Writing letters to a pen pal is a lesson in patience for students at Delta Elementary School.

"After we had written, they would ask every day if we'd gotten any letters," said Alice Niswonger of students in her second-grade class.

Last year, the class exchanged letters monthly with pen pals at an elementary school in Pennsylvania. The class also wrote to students at Woodland Elementary School in Marble Hill.

The pen pal exchange, which began three years ago, should start next month, Niswonger said, adding that as a child she had a pen pal in New Hampshire for a few years.

Through a writing program in Weekly Reader magazine, Niswonger's class was matched with a class at a similarly sized school in Pennsylvania.

About once a month, the Delta students exchange letters and cards with second-graders in Mrs. Gibson's class in Smethport, Pa.

Even though the program was designed to last one school year, correspondence has continued between the two teachers.

"We talk about our family and every once in a while we'll talk about the class or exchange ideas," Niswonger said, adding that the classroom letter exchange might end this year when Gibson retires.

Over the years, the two teachers sometimes have different class sizes, which makes the letter exchanges difficult.

"We write `Dear Pen Pal,' for the first letter and then some are written to a specific child," Niswonger said, adding that some students will then write two letters so every child receives one.

The classes have shared Christmas and Valentine's Day cards through the mail. "Last year they sent us a poster in the shape of a heart with each child's hand print," Niswonger said.

Most of the letter writing is done as practical learning experience. Through English lessons, students learn the proper greeting and form for writing a friendly letter.

And because most of the letter writing actually takes place during the school day, few students have kept in touch with out-of-state pen pals.

But that wasn't the case when Niswonger's class exchanged letters with students in Mary Livingston's second-grade class at Woodland Elementary School.

Some of the students talked over the phone, attended birthday parties or had slumber parties with their pen pals.

"It's a neat classroom experience," Livingston said. "It shows that other schools don't have to be competition."

In fact, over the summer Marble Hill students and Delta students competed in an all-star baseball game. About six of the players had been pen pals during the school year.

The two classes began writing in the spring when they each studied the parts of a letter. Jessica Livingston, Mary's daughter, was a student in Niswonger's second-grade class and delivered the letters to her mother.

"We were evenly matched and I knew most of the students," Mary Livingston said, adding that she hopes to start another exchange this year.

And it shouldn't be too difficult because her sister teaches third grade at Delta and Livingston is now teaching third grade at Woodland.

"I've already mentioned it but we'll coincide it with the unit," Livingston said. "It meets an objective and it's fun."