Remsen St. Catherine-St. Mary students participate in the Great Mail Race

By KATIE LEFEBVRE, Globe staff reporter
Nov. 16, 2006

REMSEN - Students at St. Catherine - St. Mary's Grade School in Remsen have started a new project this fall.

The fifth grade students in Kim Phillips' reading class are participating in the Great Mail Race, a writing activity in which the students write to a Catholic school in each of the 50 states in hopes that the other schools will write back with information about their school.

The fifth graders at St. Catherine-St. Mary's received a letter from St. Theodore School in Wentzville, Mo. that got them involved and interested in the Great Mail Race.

Each of the 11 students wrote to four or five Catholic schools throughout the United States to see what other Catholic schools are like in each of the 50 states. The letters were sent out Oct. 25.

Matthew Wesselmann, one of the fifth graders, pointed out that the students looked up schools that they would like to write to on the Internet.

"We got an envelope and wrote all the information down - their address," said Wesselmann.

The fifth graders wrote a cover letter explaining the project along with a questionnaire for the different Catholic schools. The questions included name of school, number of grades, number of students in the fifth grade class, what time school begins and ends, climate, community, large cites near by, class pet and favorites - subject, candy bar, school lunch, drink and book.

Also included was a questionnaire that the Remsen fifth graders had filled out about their own class, school and community.

There is a map hanging in the classroom that the students and Phillips are using to keep track of what states have replied. So far they have received letters back from schools in Kansas and Maryland.

In one of the letters the students did not recognize what the school had mentioned as their class pet, so Phillips looked it up on the Internet to find out what the animal was. The pet the students learned about was a type of lizard - anole.

In another letter, the school had more questions for the Remsen students so the class wrote a letter back to answer the questions and ask a few more of their own.

The hope is to get a reply from each of the states, but Phillips noted that she would be happy with 25 out of the 50.

"We want to gather letters to have information about each state," said Phillips.

Lindsie Schorg, another fifth grader, commented that this was a fun activity to do to find out about different climates and to see what other students like to eat.

"We get to see how different schools work, see what activities they have and what they do everyday," said Chris Weiler, one of the classmates.

Phillips noted that this was a project she could do with this class since it was a smaller group and she could monitor them in the computer lab.

"I had never heard of it before," said Phillips. "I think it is fun when they send us information about their schools. A lot of them are pretty comparable to us."