PenPal News: January 2020

Happy New Year from the PenPal Schools team! We hope that you and your students had a restful holiday season and have returned excited to pursue project-based learning and global connections in 2020. 

In the first PenPal News of 2020 we share a couple announcements, featured PenPal topics for January 2020, and our most recent PenPal Stars!

With over one hundred thousand students from more than eighty different countries connecting to learn together on PenPal Schools last year, we couldn’t be more excited to see what 2020 has in store.

Featured Topics for January 2020

We are excited to feature two new topics in January 2020. Our first featured topic encourages students from around the world to learn about motivation and goal setting. In the ‘Your Goals for 2020’ PenPal topic, students from around the world will set goals and make resolutions for the New Year! This topic is recommended for students ages 12 and up.

Join ‘Your Goals for 2020’

‘Mammals’ is also a new topic designed in partnership with Oxford University Press. In this topic, students will learn about different types of mammals and compare the mammals found in their communities with mammals from around the world! This topic is recommended for students ages 8 and up.

Join the 'Mammals' Topic

In addition to our two new topics, every January we encourage teachers to bring global perspectives to the classroom through our most popular topic, World Explorer! In World Explorer, students connect with peers from around the world to learn to compare daily life, food, art, history, and popular culture. Join this topic and learn why over 100,000 PenPals love being World Explorers!

Join World Explore

PenPal Stars

Over 900 students from more than 17 different countries recently participated in the Giving Thanks Photography & Essay contest on PenPal Schools! Students from the United States, Mexico, Thailand, and Lithuania shared photographs and wrote essays about the people, places, and things that they are most grateful for. From the 900 contest participants, seven students were selected as contest winners! 

Meet the PenPal Stars

Thanks to all of the educators who made the Giving Thanks Photography and Essay contest such a wonderful success! Is there a PenPal Star in your classroom? Click here to nominate a PenPal Star!