Mail Time
My wonderful cousin Michelle shared an awesome mailing system on FB last week. I was curious so I read the blogs that inspired her. I decided to make a little mail box and teach the kids not only how to address a letter, but what the job of the mail is. This encouraged reading for Edward and matching things and what is missing for Lucas.
How to make the box: So all I did was took a box that was mailed to us some elmer's glue and blue construction paper and wrapped the box in blue. I left one side sealed for the bottom and the top I cut off the smaller side flaps and left the bigger flaps for support. I then took 2 sheets of blue construction paper glued them together and made an arch and glued that paper now a bit heavier to the bigger flaps to support the arch. Glued all that down. This takes time so if in a rush like I was I also used my hot glue gun. Then I took a 3x5 card and colored the priority mail usps logo on it with blue marker. Glued it into place. You could also google search the image and print but my printer is out along with my scanner. Then using a kitchen knife I cut a slit in front for a mail slot.
Next I thought how are the kids gonna take out the mail, you know they are gonna want to. So I turned the mail box to the back and again using the knife cut a square out but didn't go all the way around more of a U square shape. I then folded and found I could not open and close it with ease. So once again I made another U shaped square very small with knife so you can place a finger in there and open and close the flap easily.
See how it opens to get the mail out! I was quite proud of my work.
Next I made this sample to teach the kids how to properly address an envelope.
Again using 3x5 cards I dug up some old photos of our family that we mail stuff to. Added a photo wrote the person's name clearly. There are some lovely Aunts I missed but since I'm out of a printer and have no photos of them except on my computer.... I figured we will add them into our mail system later.
On the back of each person's card is their address. Number and Street name first, then city, then state, then zip code. Edward did an awesome job addressing some envelopes himself but the return address part was too tiny for him to write in. Now he knows how we all feel. Those little stickers with our return addresses are lifesavers! giggles.
Edward was up he had to take all the envelopes he addressed and then look at the mail box. I placed a sheet of paper with only one address on it. He had to read to match up the address on the envelopes with the one on the paper.
Not only that but he had to check if the envelope had a name, address numbers, street names, city, state, zip code, a return address, and a stamp. If it was missing just one item it could not be mailed. I made alot of envelopes with mistakes on it. He caught all of them, darn!
If the envelope had nothing missing and was the correct address it was to be placed in the mail box as seen above. I had about 5-6 different addresses and after each one was used we collected the mail and did a different address on the sheet of paper in front of mail box.
He loved being the mail man even took his Wii steering wheel and pretended to drive the mail truck.
Edward couldn't believe I made this and he picked it up and saw the bottom was a cardboard box. Oh that's how you made this Mama? He asked. I said Yep and he said You are AWESOME Mama!!
Lucas being only 5 tried his best to read the envelopes but I told him to focus on what was missing. He is not quite there yet to read but he is so much closer then Edward was at his age. And he wants to try! I didn't want him to get discouraged so I then told him he could be the mailman that delivers packages!
He thought that was a great idea.
We took some of our grocery store boxes and again I used 3x5 cards to tape the address to each package. Lucas read the numbers and then delivered which package matched the address on the sheet of paper. We had a fun time and now the kids not only know how to mail items and how to address envelopes but they also learned their own address.
