Helpful Hints

• Keep work small and light for easy shipping and distribution! Think anywhere from post card sized to standard printer paper.
• Have students create work that shares something about themselves or something special about the place you are from!
• Make sure students know they are gifting their work and will not get it back. Reassure them that they will receive a gift in return from their art pen pal!
• Have your class generate a list of questions to send your art pen pal group! These can by sent while you’re still busy creating or include it in your art package when you ship your students’ artwork.
• If you’d like to pair students rather than randomly distribute work, we have two suggestions.
  • Option One- Both teachers sort and distribute work by alphabetical order so that art created by “A” goes to “A”, art created by “B” goes to “B” and so on.
  • Option Two- Both teachers to assign each of their students a number (start with 1). Write the number on their artwork next to their name before sending. When distributing, student 1 will receive artwork from 1, student 2 will receive artwork from 2, and so on.
• You can have students include a simple “about me” with their work. Feel free to print our template here!
• Print and share this letter with administration and your community to get them involved in this exciting process!