Penpals with Mawill

A story that explores respect and opens a conversation with your child.

★★★★★ Loved by families

Read the Guiding Questions

♥ This book teaches: Respect. seeing the worth in every person.

Before, During & After Reading

Guiding Questions for Parents.

Definition: Respect is acting with kindness, politeness, and consideration of the other, having good manners and treating all things carefully. In short: Value others, honor differences. Summary: This is a real classroom experience about the exchange of letters between second graders and a sponsored child in the Philippines. Mawill is a six-year old boy who is sponsored by his teacher through Children International. The second graders learn to respect Mawill and his lifestyle and culture, very different from theirs, through the exchange of letters. Lesson Objectives:

Students will show more interest in and respect for kids from environments that are different than theirs instead of avoiding interacting with them.
They will demonstrate more empathy for and a desire to help those who live in poverty.

Guiding Questions:

Why did the teacher want her class to be penpals with Mawill?
What were some differences between Mawill’s life and that of his penpals?
Were you surprised to learn that Mawill’s family couldn’t afford to pay for things he needed? Do you think there are families in your city who are as poor as his family? How do you feel about that?
What did the teacher and her students do to help Mawill?
Why do you think the class was excited to read the letters from their penpal?
If you had a pen pal like Mawill, what would you tell him about your life? If you drew him a picture, what do you think you might draw?
Have you ever played with kids from another country who speak a different language than you? If so, what was that like? Did you learn any words from their language?
What do you think the students learned from being pen pals with Mawill? What do you think Mawill learned from his American pen pals?
Do you think people who are different from each other would get along better if they took the time to get to know one another, like the pen pals did in this story?
What does the word “respect” mean to you?

🌿 Virtue Connection: Respect means seeing the worth in every person.

Hands-On Practice

Activities for This Story.

Activity: Arrange for students to be penpals with an individual or some students their own age from another culture. The goal is to give them a chance to learn about respecting the diverse cultures in our world by interacting with kids from another place that is very different from their own. Many cities have sister cities in other countries. That might be a place to look for a penpal match. The next step is to read a letter of introduction to the class, in order to find out more about their penpals. Penpals from both places exchange letters, hand-drawn pictures, and photos over a period of time, a few weeks or even a whole year. Materials needed: An agreement with a source of penpals (usually a school or a non-profit) to exchange letters with the objective of learning about each other’s cultures; writing and drawing materials, photos of student activities Directions: Introduce the topic: “Today we will begin an activity that will help us to understand and show respect for other cultures in our world. I have contacted another school and the children there would like to be penpals with you. You will write letters to them and they will write back - we’ll discuss what might be interesting to include in your letters. I will start by sharing a letter with you about your pen pals, their culture, and lifestyle. You’ll find that some things are the same in your culture and some things will be different. We will be writing back and forth for 3 months, one letter a month.” Read the letter. Ask for examples of what students could write about in their letters. Distribute materials to write and draw pictures to go with their letters. Proofread the letters, and send them to the penpals. Repeat the activity according to the agreement made between the two schools about the time period over which the exchange of letters will occur - how frequently and how long. Read letters from their penpals and talk about it using the guiding questions:

Do you have anything in common with your pen pal, like age, appearance, make-up of your families, food, interests and hobbies?
What are some differences between you and your pen pal?
Do you think you’d like to travel to your pen pal’s country and meet that person someday?
What have you learned so far about your pen pal’s country, favorite foods, activities they like, family members, and personality?

Wrap it up: Ask: “Do you think people who are different from each other would get along better if they took the time to get to know one another, like the pen pals did in the story about Mawill? Do you feel like you’re getting to know your penpal better?” Explain that the purpose of this activity is to get to know and respect someone from another culture. They may be very different from us, but that makes our friendship with them even more interesting. Someday we may even want to visit the place where they live.

About the Story.

This guide is part of the Values & Virtues library, a free collection of 400+ book guides and activities organized around 12 core virtues for children from pre-K to 6th grade. Each guide includes Guiding Questions designed to open a real conversation with your child in 10 minutes or less.

This is a true story about a second grade class and the letters they wrote and illustrated to Mawill, a boy their age from the Philippines. It all started one day when the teacher read a letter to her class from an organization called Children International. This is what it said: “Mawill is a six year old boy who lives in a one-room cement block house in a poor neighborhood in Manila, the capital city of the Philippines, an island nation in the Pacific Ocean. His parents can’t afford to supply him with what he needs in order to attend school there. Our organization is looking for someone to help him go to school and get the health care he needs. We are asking you to sponsor him by sending a monthly donation of $20. Our workers there will use that money to buy him a decent pair of shoes, proper clothes for school, and items his parents can’t afford, like toothbrushes, towels and soap.” After reading the letter, the teacher asked her students if they were interested in being penpals with Mawill. Everyone agreed it was a great idea, so once a month during the school year, they wrote and illustrated letters to their new friend across the Pacific ocean. Mawill, with the help of his teacher, wrote back and drew pictures of the plants and animals that lived on this tropical island, so different from those in Northern California! The students in the class were not from poor families, and none had ever been to the Philippines, so being penpals helped them understand what life was like for someone very different from themselves. Some of them wanted to go there and meet Mawill - only a few thousand miles away! In November, the students voted to do a bake sale to raise funds to buy some extra holiday gifts for their penpal. They raised $75 to give Mawill a very special Christmas, one he’d never forget! The students appreciated the chance to help someone who lived in poverty, and they were able to learn about how much their efforts meant to him when they read his friendly letters. This teacher continued the pen pal project with Mawill until he graduated from high school in 2019, In his last letter to his teacher and her class he wrote, “I hope you can and will help more children in the future. I will never forget you. I thank you for everything!”