Setting up a post office invitation is a playful way to enrich your child’s writing, language, and communication development, and it’s especially useful around holidays like Valentine’s Day or after a birthday when your child is writing thank you cards. In addition, post office play can easily branch into other subjects like math, geography, and environmental studies.
Here is a list of props that you may want to include in your child’s post office:
- Mailbox: Make your own from a cardboard box or purchase a mini metal mailbox from a craft store, dollar store or online.
- Envelopes, writing paper, cards, postcards: Make your own homemade cards, use our letter writing paper, or purchase pre-made envelopes/cards or postcards.
- Stamps, mailing labels, air mail stickers: These can be found at your post office.
- Address book, map/globe/atlas: Set out these tools that we can use to locate where the person we are mailing a letter to lives.
- Pretend play postal uniform: Don’t forget to create a name tag!
- Post Office signs: Open, Closed, Mail Here, Postage Costs, etc: This is great for writing practice.
- Coins, cash register: Ring in the math practice!
- Scale, tape measure: Introduce measuring skills in a meaningful way.
- Clocks: Post offices often have clocks set to times all over the world. Have children label the location on a sign below each clock.
- Pens, notepads, post it notes, date stamp, stamp making sets and ink: These are all of the “extras” that kids love to play with!
Other ways to support learning:
- Teach your child his/her address.
- Make your own stamps by cutting small drawings with fancy edge scissors.
- Weigh and measure packages.
- Reduce junk mail by looking into a no junk mail program in your area.
- Start a stamp collection.
- Visit your local post office or your country’s postal system website.
- Share old postcards from your own travels and look up the various locations on a map.
- Discuss the pros and cons of electronic mail verses paper mail.
Books to read with your little ones:
- Bunny Mail by Rosemary Wells
- Delivering Your Mail by Ann Owens
- The Jolly Postman by Allan Ahlberg
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