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Category Archives: Post Card Exchange
Post Office Unit Study
We have been having a great time learning about the US Postal Service. I thought it would be fun to create a Post Office Unit Study to go along with our International Postcard Exchange learning adventure. We have joined up with over 300 preschools and homeschools to do a postcard exchange around the world and it has been a great learning adventure for us.
Be sure to check out all of our stories in this series with lots of leaning suggestions and links to resources:
Postcard Exchange
P Is For Postcard (and post office, and postman)
Postcard Geography Notebook and Bulletin Board
Post Office Unit Study
Below I have listed resources for you to enjoy a fun Post Office learning adventure with your kids. I have a few more stories in this series to post and link up yet. I hope to post a few additional worksheets and printables too. But there are lots of links to printables below and feel free to make your own if you need more. If you have some to share, be sure to leave a link to them in the comment section below.
Post Office Unit Study
If you would like to learn more about the United States Postal Service, then why not do a unit study and lapbook or notebook to further the learning? I have listed several resources below as a Post Office Unit Study to help you further the post office adventure.
Books & DVD’s
Visit your local library or an online source to pick up a few books and DVD’s that center on the theme of the post office, mail delivery, pony express, or writing letters.
Some suggestions include:
In addition to reading, I have to highly recommend a movie we also watched called “Letters To God”. Letters To God is a movie / DVD about a boy with cancer who writes letters to God about the needs of his local community and how it changes a mailman’s heart and he learns about God’s mercy and grace through the life and mail of this boy. It is truly an amazing and inspiring story. It is a true story! My kids love this movie!
BIBLE (Writing, Copywork, Reading, Faith):
Find “Letters” in the Bible.
Write a letter (prayer) to God.
Read a portion of God’s letter (God’s word, the bible) he gave to you.
Copy a passage of the bible that speaks to your heart.
Videos (Social Studies, History, Geography):
Video: A Day In The Life Of A Mail Carrier
Video: Mailman on Horse Back in Appalachia
Video: Owney The Postal Dog
Video: Liberty’s Kids Postmaster General Franklin (part 1)
Video: Liberty’s Kids Postmaster General Franklin (part 2)
Video: How Stamps Are Made
Video: How Envelopes Are Made
Video: The Story Of The Pony Express
Video: Postman Pat (cartoon series).
More Postman Pat videos on you tube. Do a search on you tube for Postman Pat, PostmanPat and you should find a large variety of shows to watch. Postman Pat has been teaching kids about the postal service, community, friendship, and problem solving for over 27 years.
Lesson Plans and Printables (Language Arts, and All Subject Areas):
Letter Carrier Lesson Plans from First School
Letter Writing Skills Lesson Plans
Post Office Theme Unit From Ed Helper
Mail Carrier Unit From Confessions Of A Homeschooler
Westward Ho From Homeschool Share
(lesson plans, unit studies, and lapbook resources about The Pony Express and the Westward Expansion of our nation).
Wikipedia Postcard
The Postal System
Currclick The Pony Express The Mail Must Go Through
Lapbooks and Notebooks (Writing, and All Subject Areas):
Princess Correspondence Lapbook from Lapbook Lessons
Prince Correspondence Lapbook from Lapbook Lessons
Mini Office Lapbook from Homeschool Creations
The Pony Express Lapbook Pages
Mailing May from Homeschool Share
(some of these pages are perfect for a post office lapbook even if you don’t use the suggested book).
Diagram about the flow of mail: How the mail is collected, sorted, and delivered. This would be great to print out and include in a lapbook or notebook about the postal system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:USPS_mail_flow_through_national_infrastructure.svg&page=1
Vocabulary and Spelling Words:
Post Office
Mail
Mail Carrier
Postman
Mail Truck
Envelope
Stamp
Postcard
Package
Box
Post Office Box
Airmail
E-mail
Letter
Weight
Scale
Mailbox
Drop box
Mail Bag
Address
Return Address
Sender
Pony Express
Word Puzzle Using The Above Spelling Words
Writing:
Younger students practice writing the letter P and p .
Younger students practice writing the letter M and m .
In addition to copy work, and spelling words, try some of these additional writing activities.
Write a short story using at least 10 of the vocabulary words, or write a paragraph using
at least three of the vocabulary words.
Write a postcard to someone.(We wrote 18 postcards to kids around the world).
Write a letter to someone. (We wrote a letter and made thank you cards for Postmaster
John, and a letter to Grandma).
Create your own stationary to write a letter on.
Literacy Ideas For Mail Carrier from Making Learning Fun
Geography:
Draw a map or use a map and draw the path of a letter from your house to your local post office to a mail distribution center and then on to Grandma. Try mapping a letter to the President, to the Queen, to a consulate or US Embassy in a foreign country. What other special addresses can you find to map?
Map the trail and expansion of the Pony Express.
Find your location and the location of a person you are sending a letter to on a globe.
Find your location and the location of a person your are sending a letter to on google maps. How many miles, approximately, will your letter travel?
Create a geography notebook of places you send or receive mail from. Include details about the various locations in your notebook. Ideas might be a map, coloring pages of the shape of the country or state. The flag, bird, flower, tree or other symbols related to
Create a bulletin board or poster board with a map for learning about places you send or receive mail from.
50 States Coloring Pages Just choose the states you need for your learning adventures.
Print out a map. Or use tape to make a road on a flat surface. Use a small truck or car to represent the mail carriers vehicle. Have the child pretend to be in the car and travel the map or road to deliver the mail at various destinations. You can make this as involved as you wish. You could create buildings with small boxes to make a town for the mail carrier to deliver mail and packages to. You can place matching numbers or letters on the buildings for mail to be delivered. You can practice your own address with this. You can also practice directions of left, right, north, south, east, west. You could also create a map with coordinates and your mail carrier would need to read the map to find the destination. This could be a really fun geography adventure!
Math Activities:
Count change to buy a postage stamp for a postcard.
Count change to buy a postage stamp for a envelope.
Count change to buy a postcard and pay for a postage stamp to mail the postcard to Australia.
Find out how much per ounce it costs to mail a package local vs. overseas.
Graph how much it costs to send a 15lb package to Alaska, Hawaii, Germany, Spain, England,
France, Australia, South Africa, India, your neighbor, etc.
Find out how much money a postal worker makes in a month and add or multiply to find out their salary for a year.
Find out how many miles your letter would travel from your house to your grandparent’s house, from your house to your aunt’s house, and from your house to the White House.
John bought a page of stamps that were 4 stamps across and 6 stamps down. Calculate how many stamps are on the page.
Find the total area of a stamp.
Find the total area of an envelope.
Calculate postage for a large envelope being sent from New York to California.
Math Ideas For Mail Carrier from Making Learning Fun
Online Games and Quizzes:
Online Mail Delivery Game at Apples For The Teacher
Braving The Elements
Help The Tiger Mail The Valentine
Postmaster Challenge (Trivia Game)
Decode The Barcode (Mathematical Reasoning Game)
Coloring Pages:
Mailman carrying the mail.
Mailman delivering the mail.
Postman Pat online coloring pages.
The Pony Express Coloring Page
The Pony Express Nebraska History Coloring Page
Video: How To Draw Postman Pat
Mail Carrier Puppet With A Toilet Paper Tube
Mail Bag Craft With A Paper Sack
Mail Drop Box and Mail Bag
Mail Drop Box
Other Activities and Arts and Crafts:
Create A Postcard
Address Practice Craft
Design A Stamp
Create A History Timeline about the post office.
Toys & Games:
We played a fun role play game of “Postman Delivers Postcards”.
We cut out rectangles from cereal boxes. We also made some rectangles with construction paper. We wrote our address on one side and drew a stamp. The picture from the cereal box was already on the other side, but we added our own pictures to the construction paper rectangles. We placed the postcards into a shoulder bag.
One person was the postman. The postman wore the shoulder bag and delivered the mail. The other kids waited for their mail. They also sent mail to each other.
We have a toy mailbox and the mail was delivered to the mail box. We also made additional mailboxes out of pop tart boxes turned on their side.
For additional fun, you can ad numbers to the boxes for the address and have the kids match the mail to the box numbers if you want to ad more challenge to the play.
There are several board games about the postal service and stamps available. Check out these post office versions of monopoly.
Take A Field Trip:
Nothing beats a “hands on” trip to the post office. It doesn’t have to be a formal field trip. Just get the kids and go buy some stamps, or mail an envelope to your classroom, or to grandma, etc. It can be that simple! Be sure to check out our field trips to the post office in the other stories in this series.
Virtual Field Trip:
If you can’t take a trip to the post office, check out these virtual field trip resources.
Video: Field Trip To The Post Office In Knoxville, TN.
Video: Field Trip To The Post Office
Video: How Mail Is Sorted
Video: Animated Visit To The Post Office
Check out more post office ideas on our pinterest board.
Read More Stories In Our Postcard Exchange Series
Be sure to check out our other stories and more links to further the Post Office Unit Study learning adventure:
Postcard Exchange
P Is For Postcard
Postcard Geography Notebooks and Bulletin Board
Post Office Unit Study
This story will be linked up with
Raising Homemakers
Sharing Time
P is for Postcard
Mailing Postcards It costs more to send a postcard outside of the main land USA than it does inside the main land. It costs $.85 cents to British Columbia, and $1.05 to Australia. Sending a postcard to Puerto Rico costs the same as mailing a regular postcard on the main land USA which is $.32 cents. Thank You Postmaster John The kids colored lots of pictures about postmen, cut them out, and made “Thank you” cards for the Postmaster. The younger three all made cards using a sheet of construction paper folded in half. Then they used glue sticks to attache their cut outs onto the card and wrote “Thankyou” and “Postmaster John” on the cards. Dear Postmaster John, Thank you for taking the time to teach us how to mail a postcard. We enjoyed meeting you. We learned to buy special stamps for postcards. We learned that a postcard stamp costs .32 cents. We learned where to place the stamp on a postcard. We learned how to place our stamped postcards in the mail slot at the post office for the postmaster to send to their addressed destination. We also learned that a stamp for an envelope costs .45 cents. We learned about flat rate boxes to mail packages. “If it fits it ships”. and about post office boxes people rent, similar to a mail box. We learned that a Postmaster sells stamps, and weighs packages, and sorts the mail in the post office and puts mail into a post office box for people to pick up their mail, or gives mail to a Postman to be delivered to mailboxes at houses. We got to see a post office box. While looking at a post office box, a customer came and opened their box with a key to get their mail. We learned the boxes are locked and this protects people’s mail from being taken by the wrong person. They must use their key to open their box. Here are some special cards we made for you to say thank you for serving our community and for sharing your knowledge about the postal service with us. Sincerely, The Weiser Family Next we took a trip to see Postmaster John and give him our thank you cards. In the past, we have made cookies and treats for people who have helped our family and who serve in our community: mailman, garbage man, doctor, midwife, and local firedepartment. I want to do this again before we complete our unit study on the post office this fall.
This is the second story in our series about the Postcard Exchange learning adventure we are enjoying this school year. We are having such a fun experience with this. I would encourage everyone to do this at least one school semester, but we would like to do it on going during every school year, it is so much fun to make new friends around the world and learn about far away places.
This is a very valuable experience for all of my children. It is especially valuable for my preschooler and kindergartner. This postcard exchange is taking place with over 300 preschools and homeschools around the world. We are learning a lot about the postal service, geography, writing, correspondence, and more through this experience.
Be sure to check out the free Post Office Unit Study link at the bottom of this story. Feel free to leave us comments in the comment section below too.
The Letter P:
P is for Postcard:
P is for Post Office:
P is for Postman and Postmaster:
Throughout this semester, we have mailed postcards from our home mailbox, and from the local post office. We have been to the local post office on two different field trips so far.
Mailing Postcards From Our Mailbox
On a recent trip to the post office, we bought $.32 cent stamps so we could mail postcards from our home mailbox. You must have an appropriate stamp on everything you mail. These postcards were placed in the mailbox and the flag was positioned “up” to show the mailman we had mail to send out. Some people have a mailman and some people have a mail lady. 
We don’t have a “mailman”, instead we have a “mail lady”! Our postcards were picked up by our local mail lady, Miss Robin. She comes to our house 6 days a week on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. She picks up mail we send out, and delivers mail other people send to us.
The kids always enjoy talking to Miss Robin and receiving packages, mail, and postcards she delivers to us. They love to say hi, and thank her for her service to our family. She has also spoiled my kids with sharing candy at times. They are very fond of her.
When Miss Robin found out about our participation in this postcard exchange, she told the children she will mail them a postcard from Niagara Falls when she visits Canada on vacation next month. They asked if she will drive her car or fly in an airplane. She told them she will fly in an airplane this time, but she has driven the 14 hours by car to the falls on a previous vacation several years ago. They were so excited that she said she will send them a postcard!
Mailing Postcards At The Post Office
We also mailed out postcards at the local post office. The post office has an inside drop box and an outside mailbox. The outside mailbox is much bigger than the outside mailbox we have at our house.
So far, we have made two trips to the post office during this learning adventure. During the first trip we learned about the postal service, how to mail postcards, how to buy stamps, and about post office boxes. We mailed cards to places like Ohio, NC, Illinois, Oregon, etc. During the second trip to the postoffice, we mailed cards that travel outside the main land USA to Puerto Rico, British Columbia, and two postcards going overseas to Australia.
The 9 year old paid the postmaster for postage to mail the postcards. He is learning the value of money and how to buy, sell, and trade for goods and services. He is doing a great job at counting money.
Next, the younger kids put their overseas stamps on their postcards. These two cards are headed to Australia.
Then they placed their postcards in the drop box inside the post office. Now they can be collected by Postmaster John and sent to other United States Postal Service mail centers to be sorted and sent on to their destinations. At some point, our postcards will travel by airplane to the states or countries they are addressed to. Then they will be sorted again and eventually distributed to a local postal service for delivery.
Our field trips to the post office served several purposes and we learned allot of different things.
We wanted to thank Postmaster John for helping us learn about the post office and thank him for serving our community. We decided to make him cards and show our appreciation.
The older two boys made their own personal messages to say “thanks”. They both addressed the fronts of their projects with their return address and the Postmasters address. One son made a sheet of paper into a letter size envelope and addressed it. Inside he included a special message and a coloring page he made. The other son made a card that looked like a large envelope and addressed one side and drew the flap of the envelope on the back side. He also wrote a special message of thanks inside his card. Then he glued his coloring page inside.
We wrote a letter to Postmaster John thanking him for helping us learn about mailing postcards:
They were so excited to give him the cards they made for him. I think they brightened his day! 
Post Office Unit Study
If you would like to learn more about the United States Postal Service, then why not do a unit study and lapbook or notebook to further the learning? I have listed several resources in another story titled Post Office Unit Study, so be sure to check the unit study link below to help you further your post office learning adventure.
Read More Stories In Our Postcard Exchange Series
Be sure to check out our other stories and more links to further the Post Office Unit Study learning adventure:
Postcard Exchange
P Is For Postcard
Postcard Geography Notebooks and Bulletin Board
Post Office Unit Study
This post will be linked up with
No Time For Flash Cards
Raising Homemakers
ABC and 123
Sharing Time
Postcard Exchange
Hello from Weiser Academy in Flat Rock NC. We are enjoying beautiful weather here in the Blueridge Mountains. It is “Apple Season” here and all of the orchards are buysy picking apples. Many are giving hay rides and celebrating the season. Soon the trees will change colors and folks from all over the world will come to see the beautiful mountains and waterfalls. Thanks for writing to us, James, John, Joseph, Hannah, and Josiah from Weiser Academy.
I am so excited to tell you about one of the fun learning adventures we doing this school year. We are involved in an International Postcard Exchange with over 300 preschools and homeschools from around the world!
I am so thankful for the opportunity to participate in this. My kids are loving it! The program is put together and hosted by Debora at Teach Preschool. The postcard exchange is divided into 16 groups. Debora has taken the 300 + schools and divided them between 15 and 20 schools in each group. We exchange cards with others in our group, but we have the option of exchanging postcards with additional folks who let others know outside their group that they want to send out more cards other than to just those in their group. I have put our information on the additional mailing lists also. There are schools from litterally every country all over the world.
We live in North Carolina, and we are listed in group three. In our group we have 18 pre-schools and homeschools from Australia (2), Porto Rico, British Columbia, Ohio, North Carolina (2), Georgia, Texas, California (2), Wisconsin, New York, Illinios, Oregon, Kansas, Delaware, Indiana (coordinator).
Preparations:
In our homeschool, we have a globe to look up countries and states, a bulletin board with a map to locate places and mark where the postcard has come from, and a clear pocket to put our postcards in.
We are also using google maps to see visual locations in real time. If you type in the location of the school, you can see it on the map. You might get a real good close up, and you might not. You can also type in your address and the address of where the post card came from and find out the distance of how many miles apart it is.
We have made geography notebooks for the postcard exchange with a coloring page about each country and state that we recieve post cards from. We can learn about the flag, language, and other important facts about the state or country. Using Google Maps, we can record the miles / distance, etc. between their school and ours.
To start out, we went to the store and purchased 25 postcards with pictures of the Blueridge Mountains in our local area. I will buy more postcards as we need them.
We filled out the first three cards with the address of where they were going and a short note about life here in the mountains of NC. The notes on the cards have to be short because a postcard does not have much space to write. The children came up with this short message to share:
Field Trip
Then we took a field trip to the post office in Dana, North Carolina.
The children were very excited to go to the post office. This was a hands on field trip!
At the post office, we met Postmaster John. He was a terrific guide for our learning adventure and was very helpful in sharing information with the children. Postmaster John explained to the children what a post office is, how small ones might differ from large ones, and what a postmaster does in overseeing a post office vs. what a postman/postwoman does in delivering mail to people’s houses.
He also taught them about shipping packages in flat rate shipping boxes vs. traditional mailing methods. 
Then he taught them about the post office box system and how it differs from a mail box. We get our mail at our house in a mail box near our drive way. It is delivered by a postman Monday through Saturday. It is adressed to us and includes our house number, street name, city, state, and zip code.
But the folks who live in the city limits of Dana, NC get their mail in a post office box. They pay rent to the post office for their box. They are given a number and a key that corresponds to their box. Mail is addressed to them at their box number, city, state, and zip code, instead of their house number and street name. The Postmaster puts their mail into their post office box Monday through Saturday. The folks who have a post office box come to the post office to pick up their mail. Their mail is locked inside their box until they open it with their key.
A customer came in and was willing to demonstrate for the kids how he retrieves his mail from a post office box. He puts a key into his box to unlock it, then retrieves his own mail addressed to him.
Next we learned to buy stamps for our postcards. A postcard stamp costs .32 cents. 
We brought three addressed postcards to mail. The three younger children all purchased one stamp each, then placed it on their postcard to mail. Postmaster John helped them place it on straight in the correct location on the card.
After stamping the cards, the children placed the cards in the “send mail” drop box inside the post office. The Postmaster will collect all of the mail in the drop box and send it on its way to a central mail sorting facility, then it will be sent to a post office in the specific city where it is going, then sorted by what area or mail route in that city, and delivered by another postman.
Next the children bought a book of postcard stamps and a book of envelope stamps. They learned that stamps for envelopes costs .45 cents, and cost more than stamps for postcards which cost .32 cents.
Virtual Field Trips
If you can’t make it down to the postoffice with your students for a field trip, maybe you can view some fun videos with them for a virtual field trip to further their learning. Here are some possible options, but you can find many more online if you do a search yourself. Find ones that interest your classroom and make it fun!
Field Trip To The Post Office
How mail is sorted.
Why do we put stamps on letters?
Pokoyo – Pato’s Postal Service
Check out this video of a tour of the back room of a post office in Idaho.
Further The Learning
Here are a few additional things to further the learning.
Here is a postcard coloring page.
Make your own postcard to mail.
Diego & Dora postcards.
Mailman delivery game.
All 50 states coloring pages.
Want To Join Us?
Would you like to exchange a postcard with us? Send me an email to weiser academy at aol dot com and let me know about your homeschool, and that you would like to also exchange postcards in a fun postcard exchange learning adventure.
More To Come:
Stay tuned for more learning adventures with our International Postcard Exchange! I will post more coloring pages and video links in related stories including:
An interview with a postman (post woman) or mail carrier.
The job of a postman.
I will have lots more web links for you in the upcoming stories. Be sure to check back to add more fun to your learning adventure.
I will keep a running list of the stories linked below as I get them posted. Thanks for joining us on our postcard learning adventure!
P is for Postman & Postwoman
Mailing Postcards Overseas
Postcard Geography Notebooks & Bulletin Board
Question:
Have your kids participated in a postcard exchange? Please leave a comment below letting us know what your thoughts or experience has been in a postcard learning adventure with your kids. If you have never done one, but like the idea, or don’t like the idea, please let us know that too. We love recieving your comments and suggestions. Thank you.
This post will be linked up with
No Time For Flash Cards
Sharing Time
ABC and 123
Raising Homemakers
I Saw It On Vacation