Writing to Penpals

This is my daughter concentrating on writing a letter to respond to our penpals at 'The Playhouse', set up through the childmindinghelp forum.  We are really enjoying corresponding with them and it is great on so many levels because letter writing is dying out somewhat these days, yet it remains so special to receive a handwritten letter.  If you don't want to write to penpals, you could encourage children to wriet to their parents, or grandparents (especially lovely if they live far away and don't see their grandchild often!)

• PSED - dispositions and attitudes as the children get excited about receiving mail and then replying; making relationships as they work on a reply together and working at making a relationship through writing to new friends; sense of community as they learn about others and how others live and what they like to do.
• CLL - language for communication, linking sounds and letters, reading and writing.
• PSRN - handling money to buy the stamp we need
• KUW - Time as they wait for a reply and think about what others are doing in other places; communities as they become more interested in what people in different palces are doing; talking about how the post works (a bit of history about how post used to work)
• PD - fine motor control drawing pictures and writing words to their friends; using equipment and materials by folding the paper to go in the envelope.
• CD - make a postbox together to add in to role play.

Some other ideas I have tried are to find writing paper that ties in with anything that the children are interested in.... these are quite simple to find through searching google.  We have started a scrap book to keep the letters in and have decorated the front with these realistic stamps.

if there are any readers who would like to team up with other settings to exchange letters, please e-mail me at littleblossomschildminding@googlemail.com and I will try to pair you up!