We pulled out our favorite book and read about the different ways that mail travels. We read about the post system, email, post cards and how to send those kinds of mail.
Since I am such a big fan of recieving snail mail I figured we could birghten someone elses day and send some hand written (colored) mail. We made pop-up cards! My preschooler is fascinated with animals so I found some printable animals to put in our cards. We found ours at www.edupics.com they have lots of fun coloring pages so check them out!
We colored the animals
Then cut them out.
(If your preschooler is interested let them do the cutting or at least give it a supervised try)
Next we needed to make the pop-out card for the animals to POP out of. Making these cards was very easy and very rewarding. We used construction paper and cut it different sizes for different cards.
You need two pieces of paper that are the same size. This is one sheet of construction paper cut in half.
Fold each half in half
Then make two cuts the same length for your POP
We did 4 cuts to make two POPS
Turn the paper over and pull your POP tabs out. Fold the card in half to keep the POP tabs popped.
This is how it should look
To complete the card glue the other piece of construction paper to the back to cover the holes. Kids love glue so this should be fun!
The base of your card is done. Now for the decorating!
We added our colored animals and word bubbles to send our message.
Get creative and make them however you vision them to be
Here are our finished cards
Now for the best part. Think of someone you love and send them a card in the mail.
Some other ideas you could try are:
Take your preschooler to the post office so they see a little bit of how the mail system works. You might even be able to call ahead of time and set up a tour for your kids and the neighbors.
Send a card in the mail to yourself! My mom sent me a card once and I was amazed that you could send a letter from your own house to your own house. This way the kids will be able to see what the letter looks like before it was sent, how it looks post stamped and how long it takes to send a letter.
Let your child type an email (with help) and send it to a loved one.
I would love to hear how you and your family learned about mail. If you made a pop up card please send us a picture (another form of communication :)
