Community Building during 

COVID-19 
Personal Inquiry Project  
─ 

Kealin Seppala  
PSIII Student | University of Lethbridge  
New Brighton School  
Fall 2020 

 
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Overview 2 
Purpose 2 
My WHY 3 

The Process 4 
Pairing up Pen Pals 4 
Drafting a Letter to a Grade 3 Friend 5 
Addressing an Envelope 6 

Letter Opening 7 
First Letter Opening and Excitement 7 
Second Letter Opening 8 

Curricular Outcomes 9 

Challenges 10 

Students Response 10 

Student Work 10 
Student Feedback 11 

Conclusion 11 
Next Steps 11 
Rationale 12 

 
 
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Overview 

Purpose  
 

The purpose of my personal inquiry project was to help foster community among the grade 
3 classes at New Brighton School. COVID-19 has created a different school environment 
than what students and staff are used to. The restrictions in place help keep students and 
staff safe, but limits who students can interact with while at school. Pre-COVID students 
had ample amounts of time to interact outside of class time; recess, in the lunchroom, 
lunch outdoor time, and during music and physical education.  

In the beginning days of the school year, students were unsure about leaving their parents 
and heading into the school to sanitize. Flash forward a few weeks, students have shown 
that they are resilient with all of the new rules and changes. However, I observed how 
challenging it was for students as they could not connect with old friends or students in 
other classes due to small cohorts within the school.  

My grade 3 class is in a cohort with a grade 4 class, the two classes get along. However, 
neither class is able to interact with students in their same grade this year. The year 
difference is not extreme, but it is important for kids to interact with other kids at their 
developmental level and age. This mixed cohort challenged me to think about a way that I 
could have my students connect with students, friends and old classmates their age.  

There are five grade 3 classes at New Brighton School. I am lucky enough to be able to 
teach all classes in physical education. The grade 3 classes knew I was teaching one of the 
other grade 3 classes and would therefore ask me about their old friends that are in my 
class. They would talk about how they used to be in the same class last year, or that they 
would play soccer with each other at recess in previous years. I knew I had to think of 
something 

 
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My WHY 
I have always been interested in mental health and wellness, especially in young children. 
With the pandemic happening, I just want to do anything I can to make this time as normal 
as possible for the students.  

In my first practicum I had observed my teacher associate educate students about their 
brain. She would use things like glitter jars and mindfulness to show the importance of 
being mentally well. Students would grab the glitter jar when they felt upset or frustrated 
and would shake the jar and watch the glitter settle slowly. This glitter to the students 
represents their brain, they know that they need to wait for the glitter, their brain, to settle 
before they can make rational decisions. This pandemic is a scary thing and we need to 
make sure our students’ glitter has settled so they can be a successful learner and feel safe 
at school. Relationships, I thought, could be a way to begin to settle the glitter.  

One day in September, we had our students complete a writing sample for us. They were 
told they could write about whatever they wanted. One of the students wrote about her 
two best friends from grade 2. The writing made both my teacher mentor and I incredibly 
sad. The student talked about how much she missed her friends and that she just hoped 
that they are safe and healthy. She ended her paragraph with a wonder if she will ever see 
these friends again. My teacher mentor and I immediately began brainstorming ideas on 
how we can help our students connect with other students in our school. 

With the help of picture books and my colleagues on the New Brighton Grade 3 Team we 
came up with the idea of having pen pals. We thought we could pair up grade 3 students in 
different classes in our school to foster a positive relationship and experience for our 
classes. Letter writing also connects to the curriculum and helps students with their writing 
stamina, using descriptive words, and using punctuation in order for their writing to make 
sense.  

 
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The Process 

Pairing up Pen Pals 

With a big grade 3 team and 100 grade 3 students, pairing up students to be pen pals was 
bound to be a challenge. The first thing we had to determine as a team was the purpose of 
our pen pals; did we want this process to build new connections or reconnect with old 
relationships? Our pen pal project was collaborative with the grade 3 team and our team 
was split between - making new friends or reconnecting. We decided to give students the 
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opportunity to write down 3 friends’ names in another class that they would like to 
reconnect with. Or they could say that they wanted a surprise pen pal to make a new 
friend! We ended up having about half the grade 3s pairing up with a friend and half 
wanting to connect with someone new.  

The criteria for pairing up pen pals included that the partners needed to be from a 
different grade 3 class; someone they can’t see face to face due to COVID restrictions. I 
wanted to give the students a change to reconnect with friends they have not seen since 
March 2020 or give them the opportunity to build a new friendship. Throughout my first 
few weeks at New Brighton School, I noticed that some students had not connected with 
others, and I wanted to be able to foster a positive friendship for them. 

Drafting a Letter to a Grade 3 Friend  

In my class, I started by reading a few different picture books that had letters or pen pal 
themes, such as C
​ lick Clack Moo by Doreen Cronin. ​This book was a good introduction to 
letter writing and the back and forth process. This took us down the road of other books 
such as ​Dear Dragon by Josh Funk. ​This book was a great introduction of what it means to 
have a pen pal and what that experience looks like. This book also was important as it 
showed the students that it was okay to have a pen pal that you do not know - as part of 
the process is to make new friends and connections!  

For our first letter, the students wrote to a “Grade 3 friend” as it was going to be a surprise 
of who their pen pal was when they opened their first letter! It was so fun to see the 
excitement build up over the week of who their pen pal would be! We learned about the 
important components of a letter such as having salutations, a body that includes 
questions for your reader, and an ending. After learning about letter writing, my students 
completed a draft copy of their letter for their pen pal. We then worked on giving and 
expecting feedback on our writing before we used a fancy paper for our final copy of our 
letters. They were so excited about this paper, they thought they were so official. This 
process was able to cover a variety of curricular outcomes in English Language Arts, but 
this process meant so much more than that! The hidden curriculum in this project was to 
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have students feel more connected and comfortable this school year with all the COVID 
changes. Kids are so resilient!  

Addressing an Envelope  
The students had a fun time learning how to address a letter! The students made 
connections to this, such as “I like going to the mailbox and getting the mail for my mom” 
and “Sometimes I have to bring a bag with me to the mailbox because there is so much 
there.” One student even commented that they love getting letters in the mail, and that 
their Grandma and the student write letters back and forth. The students felt very grown 
up that they were addressing their own letter and that it would go into the mail and that 
they would get their own letter in return.  
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Letter Opening  

First Letter Opening and Excitement  

This was such an exciting day. Many of the grade 3 teachers told their students that the 
New Brighton Mail system was really slow and busy, so the kids did not know what day they 
would get to open their letter! The students’ anticipation for this day was the best!  

Handing out the students’ letters for the first time and seeing their faces when they got 
their hands on their envelope was so heartwarming. They were vibrating with excitement, 
one student even said “it feels like Christmas morning!” We took pictures of our students all 
together before they got to open their letters and the picture captures perfectly how they 
were all feeling. For the first letter opening, my TM took a video of the students and it is 
something I will remember for so many years to come. As a class we did a countdown from 
10, at 1 the excitement of the students ripping open their letter and finding out who their 
pen pal is was a great moment I will not soon forget.  

The students were SO excited, there was shaking, crying and laughter filling the classroom. 
One of my students put their head on their desk and just sat there for a second and 
initially, I thought that this student was sad about who their pen pal was. After checking in, 
this student was crying with happy tears because their pen pal was their best friend! He 
was so happy to see the pen pal’s name that emotions spilled out! Another student was 
gleefully shouting out who their pen pal was, she could not believe it was her old best 
friend from grade 2! There were lots of jumps for joy and huge smiles! My students kept 
telling me that they had so many questions for their friend and can’t wait to keep writing. 
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After checking in with the grade 3 team, they had very similar experiences. It was like 
Christmas morning opening their letters.   

For me, being a part of such a collaborative and grade 3- wide project has been so joyful. 
Especially after seeing the impact that the initial letter opening had on these students’ 
spirits and how they immediately felt more connected to others at this school.  

Second Letter Opening  

For the second writing process, I wanted to make sure that the grade 3 team was on the 
same page about what the letters should include. We wanted to make sure that each 
student asked at least 2-3 questions in their letter for their pen-pal to answer. We also 
wanted to focus on adding detail. We discussed with students the idea of asking questions 
to help you get to know your pen pal, even if you know the person already there will 
definitely be questions and answers that you can learn more about!  

The second letter opening was on our halloween day at school, lots of the letters were 
surrounded on how they are celebrating the festivities while still being covid safe. I thought 
it was so cool that students were asking their new friend about halloween in an inclusive 
way, such as “are you celebrating halloween? If you are, what are you dressing up as?” 
Again, my heart was just full after watching the students open their letters. My well-being 
has been positively impacted from this project just as an observer, I am so proud of these 
students.  
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Curricular Outcomes  
We use these pen pal letters to connect to a variety of outcomes and character result 
comments for this reporting period.  
Some of the report card comments on citizenship and character includes:  
● Demonstrated citizenship in learning when corresponding with grade 3 penpal.  
● They attempted to learn about anf from unfamiliar ways of thinking and living when 
asking their friend questions.  
● Seeks to learn about unfamiliar ways of thinking and living (celebrations - do you 
celebrate Christmas, Diwali, Ramadan, etc.?)  
● Responds and is sensitive to the needs and welfare of others.  
 
Some ELA connections included:   
● I can print neatly.  
● I can leave spaces between my words.  
● I can spell my Never Ever words correctly and sound out words as best as I can 
using what I know about letter sounds.  
● I can use capitals in the correct spots.  
● I can use periods, exclamation and question marks in the correct spots.  
● I can use linking words (like, because, and, so, but). 
● I can include a lot of ideas. 
Here is a Letter Writing Checklist that I created to have the students use their own writing 
before they asked a teacher to read and review their work. 

Letter Writing Checklist:  Yes  No  

I wrote the date at the top of the page.      

I used a greeting to start my letter.      

I have a beginning to my letter.      

My letter has a middle where I answer     

questions and add detail to my answers.  

I have asked at least 3 questions.      

I have an ending to my letter. (sincerely,     

from, love) 
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I used capital letters, periods and     

skipped lines.  
 

Challenges  
Some challenges that we faced during this project was about partnering up students. With 
there being over 100 students, this process was bound to have at least one pairing that 
would not be ideal. However, out of all the pairings, we only had to change one! There was 
communication back and forth between classes to ensure that students were happy and 
still excited to continue writing. We had to just keep reminding ourselves that the whole 
point was for students to be able to have a positive experience with a friend and to feel a 
part of the grade 3 community even with the restrictions in place with COVID.  

Another challenge we faced was about having the letters from all 5 classes done around 
the same time. With wanting to honor the amount of time that students need to write their 
letter and to have their best output, we had to set a deadline for the classes. We were 
rather successful the first time having all the letters completed on time. The second letter 
opening however, we had more students away during the writing process due to covid 
isolation periods, they were unable to write their letter on time. Some classes ended up 
opening their letters earlier than others, so we had students confused where their letters 
were and when they could open them. If I were to do this again, I would try to come up with 
a way for the students to all have their letters ready to go at the same time. Possible 
strategies could be using the computer to type the letter, having an audio clip of the 
student reading their letter, or having a scribe.  

Another challenge has been trying to coordinate a one on one virtual meet with the 
students. Initially, I wanted the kids to get the opportunity to meet with each other over 
Google Hangout and be able to communicate “face-to-face.” However, with limited devices 
in the school and so many students, this task is turning out to be a challenging one.  
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Students Response  

Student Work  
A common thing we say as educators is “everyone learns differently, and in different ways.” 
This saying holds true for this project as well. Students in my class all have different writing 
abilities and use different tools. For example, in my class we have one student that requires 
extra support during tasks like these as they are on an adaptive program that they work 
through on their own pace. This student has a friend that is often the topic of the 
conversations I have with this student. After checking in with the other teachers, we were 
able to accommodate that partnership and they could both write to each other. The 
student in my class originally had a scribe for the first letter and lots of prompts. The 
second letter, our student was able to complete a guided draw of Pete the Cat and a 
handwritten letter. The penpal for this student used a computer to type out their letter, this 
is just another example of how amazing students are and what they can do with the correct 
tools!  

 
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Student Feedback 
Students have been so positive with this experience. They are constantly asking when they 
are getting to open another letter. I think that this project has been one avenue for 
students to feel some connection to other students in the school. I know that it is not the 
same as face to face interaction like they are used to, but they are so resilient.  
Students were so happy with their penpal partners that I even had a student cry of pure 
happiness! One of my students told me that he and his grandma just decided to be 
penpals. His grandma lives in BC and so they are going to start writing to each other to stay 
connected. Writing has been a struggle for him, so the fact that he is wanting to write on his 
own time is so amazing!  

Conclusion  

Next Steps 
Our school has a wellness plan each year. This year they were wanting to focus on the 
resiliency of our students. With all the changes with COVID, the students have done an 
amazing job going with the flow and following the safety rules. My physical education 
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teacher mentor liked the idea of building a community during COVID and she was often the 
ear I would turn to when discussing this pen pal project. She came to me weeks later saying 
that she has taken my idea to the next step. She said that for our wellness goal she wants 
to take on having other classes partner up with each other to help build a community in 
our school. She said that she invisions having these partner classes be the audience for 
students’ work on writing, art or even have a google meet together. Our staff have the 
option to sign up their class for this partnership experience if that interests them. I am just 
so grateful that for the time I have left in my internship that I can help with this wellness 
goal. I am also just happy that my ideas of collaboration during this crazy time are being 
accepted by so many at our school.  

In the New Year, the grade 3 team is going to continue with penpals. We have 
brainstormed ideas for learning connections and how we can continue to use these letters 
to make connections to each other and the curriculum. For example, they are going to work 
on descriptive writing. Each student will draw something from their own imagination, and 
then use their descriptive writing skills to explain their drawing. They will mail the 
descriptive letter to their penpal. The job of the penpal is to draw the object or creation 
that their friend sent them, and send that picture back to see how good our descriptive 
writing is! It will be so fun, as it will show the students that everyone can interpret things 
differently.  

Another next step could be to write letters to community members such as people in care 
homes or front line workers. Students were working on creating holiday cards for the 
senior homes and it had me thinking that in the New Year the grade 3 team can continue 
with letter writing and have a penpal with a senior!  

Rationale  
To conclude my thoughts, I am just grateful for the New Brighton staff for helping me and 
collaborating with me throughout this process. I know that being a teacher is such a 
collaborative process with other educators and I am just happy that this internship has 
allowed me to have such a positive experience interacting and collaborating with other 
educators in our school.  

Before starting my final practicum, I knew that my professional inquiry project would have 
something to do with well-being. Wellness is important to me, especially during this 
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pandemic. Many people, including myself have spent this extra time learning new skills, 
and some of those skills include how to better take care of our mental well-being. I know 
that teachers play such a large role in student wellness, positive or not. I strive to be a 
positive player in my past, present and future students’ wellness team.  

This pen pal project was a lot of work, but also so rewarding. If I were to stay at this school 
for a longer period, or maybe during a different (pre-covid) year, I would extend this project 
to other schools or other community members in New Brighton. The opportunities are 
endless of who we could write to as a class. We could write letters to other students in the 
4 countries that we study in social studies, we could write to elders on orange shirt day to 
share their stores, or we could write to characters in our read aloud and novel studies.  

Thank you for taking the time to read my pen pal project. 

Thank you for those that helped me through this project and were there to listen to all my 
ideas before I landed on this.  

Thank you to the grade 3 team for helping me with the pen pal project and letting this 
project live in your classroom.  

Thank you to my students for participating and building a community during COVID-19.