Our third and fourth grade students come to the gym once a month during their recess time to write an e-mail message to another physical education class in a school in another part of the country. The classroom teachers help out ahead of time by dividing their classes into groups of 3-4 students each. One of these groups comes to the gym each month. The only topic of their letters is what they do in their physical education class. The students describe what they have recently done in class. They also ask questions of the other school, based on past messages.

All of the messages are e-mailed through the physical education teacher's e-mail account. The students do not need their own e-mail acounts.

The students benefit from hearing about activities from other parts of the country. They also benefit from having to re-tell their
experiences to someone else. It serves to reinforce their own learning.

NOTE: To find the emails I posted a message on physical education listservs to see who else was interested. I would then hook up with those schools that replied to me. I have done this for three years now and I have a set of other schools that do this with me each year.

Email this best practice!