Students practice cursive; write to soldiers

STEVE HARTMAN/DAILY FORUM
St. Gregory’s Barbarigo School third grade teacher Erica Buck (center) helps Bea Olasz with her letter while Trevan Lager works on his letter. The third-grade class has written letters to four United States soldiers, assigned to them by the organization “Adopt a U.S. Soldier.”

Searching for a way to reinforce her students’ use of cursive writing, St. Gregory’s Barbarigo School third grade teacher Erica Buck came across the “Adopt a U.S. Soldier” website. Once Buck learned more about the organization and its mission, her third grade class adopted four U.S. soldiers, and have started corresponding by writing to the soldiers.

“I thought a friendly letter would be the perfect format for the students to practice cursive writing,” Buck said. “Once I began thinking about who they could write to, I came across the ‘Adopt a U.S. Soldier’ website and thought writing to soldiers would work well for our project.”

Buck said the students fully embraced the idea of writing to the soldiers, and are discussing expanding the project to include sending care packages.

“It’s fun to write to soldiers that are saving our country,” third grader Wesley Snead said. “I asked lots of questions in my letter because I want to get to know him better.”

Student Brinley Conn said she also asked a lot of questions in her letter, and is anxious to get a reply.

“I asked lots of questions in my letter,” Conn said. “I wanted to find out about my soldier so I can get to know him better. I can’t wait until he replies, so I can learn about him and tell him more about me.”

Buck said the biggest problem she has encountered since the class wrote the first set of letters is reminding the students to be patient in waiting on replies.

“We know the soldiers are extremely busy protecting our country and may not have time to write back right away, if at all,” Buck said. “That being said, it’s difficult to get third graders to be patient waiting on responses to their letters because they’re so excited.

“We do plan on putting together care packages for our soldiers, as well, once we know more about them and what they might need.”

To learn more about the Adopt a U.S. Soldier program, visit their website www.adoptaussoldier.org.

STEVE HARTMAN/DAILY FORUM
St. Gregory’s third grade students Wyatt Garner, Lane Jennings, Bryna Grow and Landon Liebhart work on letters they are writing to U.S. Soldiers as a class project.