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Home : 2003 : March : 13

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By Julianne

During February I introduce a post office unit. The kids love it so much that some years it stays up until the end of school. One part of that is learning to write a letter, putting it into an envelope and addressing it.
This is how we do that:
1. Have students write a short letter to a buddy. I assign each student a buddy to begin this process so no one is left out. Our group has low reading and writing skills so I give them an actual letter to copy with spaces for their buddy's name and their own name at the bottom.
2. We read a book about the post office. There are several good ones. A favorite

is "The Jolly Postman". Talk about how the letters were delivered.

3. As an interactive writing activity, address a very large envelope. Discuss ahead of time what must be on the envelope in order for it to get to the correct person. In our classroom we have students write "From Susie" in the upper left corner, "To Jake, Room 6" as the address. We then use one of those stickers that come from magazine companies (publisher's clearing house, et. al.) as a stamp. On your interactive writing envelope you can use a large sticker or even draw on a stamp.

4. Now the kids use this template to address their own envelope. If you want to make it more official you can have them write their letter to a parent, address it to their own home and stamp it with a real stamp.

Don't know how much of this you could accomplish in one session, but it is always a good idea to be continuing on with something started earlier when you're going to be observed. It helps your evaluator to see the continuity of your lesson plans.