Playing Christmas!

I have been resisting the 'C' word as hard as possible for weeks. I don't like that the commercial side of it is thrust down our throats for so long, but last Wednesday I could resist no longer as the children were playing 'Christmas Shopping' furtively, worried that I would tell them to stop! I mellowed and provided gift bags that I had stored - for them to put their 'gifts' in once wrapped. They were delighted and it made for hours of happy and imaginative play (and lots of opportunity for counting in fives and tens, and working with money, and writing receipts and signs etc etc). The evil anti-early-Christmas in me found great satisfaction from the amount of learning that took place! This week I am adding in jiffy bags for posting gifts and am going to transform a corner into a post office using some of these resources here, as well as these, whilst I am waiting for the resource pack offered by the Post Office, available here. Now just wondering if we have a box big enough to make a suitable post box?

Here is the post office ready to go, and here are the girls who were so excited they wanted to view it before they went to bed - it met with their approval!! We are going to see if the real post office will let us have some forms and labels and other goodies to plump out the stocks a bit!