Mrs. Renner’s Class participated in a national Valentine Exchange for the 3rd year this year. Participating teachers are divided into groups of 20-25. Each classroom writes a letter giving information about their school, their community, and their state. They also make a Valentine to send with each letter. You send your letter and your special Valentine to each teacher in your group. Then comes the fun part, waiting to receive our letters in the mail. When we would get a letter, we would read about their school and discuss the state that the letter came from. Each student had a map and we would color in the state that the letter was from. Next, we would use Google Maps to find the school and look up how many miles away it was from us. Then, we would figure out how many school days it would take us to drive there.
This year, there were a total of 1,085 teachers who participated. 49 states plus Canada were represented overall. Our group received letters from 20 different states. The closest was an elementary school in Moundsville, West Virginia. The furthest was an elementary school in Dayton, Oregon. The students have so much fun with this project.