Letters to Santa Project Overview Project Procedures Writing Prompts Samples of Student Writing

Project Procedures

1. OBTAIN A PARTNER SCHOOL
   • Pair with a teacher you already know, or
   • Post a notice on your own email service requesting a partner on your own.
   • Or register here beginning in October to participate in GSN's Santa Project. Our long-serving Santa will match you up with another classroom.

   If you find your own partner, you may send a copy of these materials to your partner. You may modify and use them for your own purposes as a classroom teacher. However, "The Santa Letters" and all accompanying files are copyrighted ©, and you may not adapt or utilize them for any organized or commercial purposes. In all cases you must attribute credit to Dennis Cowick and the Global Schoolhouse.
    
   IMPORTANT:
   Do NOT announce the Santa Letter Project to your students until after you have made contact with a partner teacher. It would be a good idea to exchange several messages and perhaps even talk on the phone once or twice to ensure an equal commitment to the project before you announce it to your students. You will find that the key to a successful project follows from a firm commitment from both sides to finish the project to the end.
   
   LEARN HOW TO CONVERT WORD PROCESSOR FILES TO ASCII TEXT FILES
   
   If you want to send your letters as a word processing document file, you and your partner teacher must use the same word processing program. Often, the easiest way to send and and receive files of student writing is as attached text files.
   
   If you want to do this but you don't already know how to convert your word processing files to plain text files, please get help from people in your school, school district, or community who can help you learn how to do this.
   
   

2. PRACTICE SENDING AND RECEIVING FILES WITH YOUR PARTNER
   
   One of your main tasks in this project is sending the letters back and forth. It is imperative that you learn these procedures BEFORE beginning this project with your class.
   
   Write a practice letter to Santa, save it on disk, and send it via email, first to yourself, then to your partner teacher. You should expect your partner to reciprocate so that you both can feel confident that the project won't fail due to lack of technical knowledge on your partner's part.
   
   Remember to ask someone nearby if you need technical help.
   
   
3. SET GUIDELINES WITH YOUR PARTNER CLASS
   
   - Agree on a time line (you may modify the suggested time line... but leave enough time for sending the last letters).
   - Agree on the number of students participating (This is a popular project. Take a tip from the secondary teacher that ended up having her students answer over 200 letters instead of the planned 30.)
   
   
4. DO SOME PRE-WRITING ACTIVITIES WITH YOUR CLASS
   
   After describing the lesson to your students, use one of the pre-writing prompts, either for primary students or secondary students.
   
   Secondary teachers: do some pre-writing exercises with your students... before you begin receiving your Santa Letters.
   
   * In a group discussion, students should try to think like Santa. They should agree on descriptions of the North Pole and Santa's workshop, what it is like to work with reindeer, and other questions likely to be asked by primary students. Each student should write a favorite vignette of life at the North pole that they might like to share with their primary partner. Read these together to avoid any blatant discrepancies among the stories... remember, the primary students within the same class will no doubt share their letters from "Santa" and may spot any contradictions.
   
   * Discuss how it is not fair to promise to bring everything the child has listed... how to be encouraging and diplomatic without making any specific promises.
   
   * Discuss how to encourage young children to be good for the sake of being good.
   
   
5. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS WRITE TO SANTA
   
   I have talked to primary teachers and there are different ways to have your students actually write their letters

• Have your children dictate their letters to you as you type.
• Arrange to have older students or parent volunteers come in and type the letters.
• Have students dictate their letters to Santa to you. As they dictate, you write their letter on paper. One teacher I know had her students spell the words and she wrote them EXACTLY in the phonetic way her students spelled. Then the children sat at the keyboard with their letter at their elbow, and they slowly, painstakingly typed in the letters.

Letters produced in the third way are the most challenging and entertaining for the secondary students to answer, as you can imagine.

7. PRIMARY TEACHER SENDS THE LETTERS
   
   It may save you time if you compile all of your student letters into one large file. However, if you do this, include a page break between each one of your students' letters.
   
   
8. SECONDARY TEACHERS RECEIVE THE LETTERS
   
   Download, save, and print the message(s) containing the Santa Letters. Pass out the letters to your class, have them write a letter FROM Santa and save the letters.  You can merge several letters "from" Santa into one or more longer files. Be sure and include a page break between each one of your students letters.
   
   
9. SECONDARY TEACHERS SEND THE LETTERS FROM SANTA
   
   When you send your email containing Santa's letters to your partner teacher, type a preamble "from" Santa. Then upload the files of student writing.
   
   Example:
   
   Ho Ho Ho! It was so nice to get all those wonderful letters from Mrs. Jones class down there in California! It warmed my heart to hear from so many of you. Have a wonderful Holiday!
   
   HO HO HO!
   
   love,
   Santa Claus
   
   
10. SPECIAL SUGGESTIONS AND REMINDERS

1. Merge your class letters into one file, then send via email to your partner teacher.
2. Allow plenty of time when planning the deadlines.
3. Take pictures of your primary students as they work on the letters and send captioned copies to your secondary partner. They will enjoy seeing snapshots as they play the role of Santa.
4. Make a video of your primary students at the various stages. The elementary students could send their video to your Santa partner introducing themselves.
5. Post the letters to and from Santa on a bulletin board.
6. Staple both letters together and send them home with the primary students.
7. Put up a display in a hall so the rest of the school can share the excitement!
8. Don't try to do letters for everyone in the entire school!
9. Get the parents and administrators involved or at least make sure they know about what the excitement is all about.

11. EVALUATION/FOLLOW-UP
    
    Primary teachers: Send a letter to your partner class:

1. Thank them for contributing to your students
2. Describe the scene in your class when your primary students read their own letters "from Santa."
3. Share any interesting or noteworthy vignettes about the impact this had on your students, their comments and reaction, parents' reactions, etc.

Secondary teachers: Have your students write, either as a class or in several small groups, an evaluation of this project, including their reactions and how they would improve the project. Send this evaluation to your primary partner.

12. A VARIATION ON THE SANTA CLAUS LETTER EXCHANGE
    
    Santa, Inc.:
    
    Steve Pinney, who ran "The Writing Network" for the Newport Mesa Unified School District in California, added a twist to the project. Instead of requiring his students to write a practice business letter, he had them write to a corporation called, "Santa, Inc." A typical letter may request the price for 7 cases of reindeer food and nibbles. The letters are written on computer and saved on disk, then sent electronically to a senior high class.
    
    The students at the senior high class ARE Santa, Inc. They reply to the letter and send their answer back over the wires. Both classes use the proper business letter format.
    
    Letters to the Easter Bunny:
    
    Emily Shieh, a teacher at Poway, California, High School, was confronted by some rather large and upset high school students after one of her classes did the Santa letters. They wanted to know why they hadn't been in on the Santa letter writing to the little kids. They informed her they wanted to do am Easter bunny letter writing exchange. "You find us some little kids, and we will be the bunnies!", they advised Emily. And so, out of the Santa letter electronic exchange was spun the Easter Bunny letters in which several other classes are now involved.
    
    
13. SANTA LETTER "SAMPLES"
    
    Some of the letters that have been written to and from Santa by students in past years are available.