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:

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.

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