Inter-class pen pals

Ever since we wrote to pen pals in my second grade class, I have always loved the idea of giving my students the opportunities to write to pen pals.  Particularly in Spanish classes, this would be a wonderful way for students to practice reading and writing Spanish.  While I would love to do this with students from other countries in upper grades! I think students in lower grades would be nervous about writing to fluenct Spanish-speakers and also have difficulty reading.  However, yesterday a teacher told me about how students at her school have inter-class pen pals!  I thought this was such a fantastic idea I had to write it down! Students would write letters to a pen pal using their curreent vocabulary and be paired with another student at the same level and therefore using the same vocabulary.  They would use their Spanish nicknames, so they likely wouldn't know who they were writing to, at least at first.  This gets students practicing their Spanish reading and writing as well as creating a community between classes.  What a great plan!  Moreover, I could pair students in a way that they could learn from each other as each student has their own strengths and weaknesses in their writing, and students would begin to notice what they're doing correctly and what they need to improve on by reading their classmantes' writing.  I imagine I would require students to write back and forth each week (citizenship grade!), and then reveal pen pals at the end of each quarter and assign new ones to get more variety.  I can't wait!