We have been having SO much fun with our new school adventures! And our first unit will definitely take longer than I previously expected because of all the FUN! Our first unit is on helpers, specifically community helpers. I want to give the girls an idea of what a helper is. I figure it will help the two of them relate better to one another, to the rest of the family (mama and daddy), and to others as we go out and about. First up in our unit on community helpers was the mail man.
First and foremost, I want to give the girls and idea of our biggest helper, the LORD! As a part of our everyday, early schooling, we review our school rules. The last two are: “Help one another” and “Ask God for help.” And we have a Bible verse we are in the process of learning for this unit. I wanted to make sure that most of the words were easy for G to read and understand. She was able to read the verse very quickly and we are working on memorizing it by reading it a couple of times each day. With the emphasis on how to help one another and who can help us, we start our school day by praying to God to help us during our school day. G has started leading this prayer time with some of the simplest and sweetest prayers.
Psalm 28:7
The Lord is my strength and my shield;
My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped;
Therefore my heart exults,
And with my song I shall thank Him. NASB
Music:
We found a cute little poem that we learned and G was able to recite by the end of the week. G loved to be able to put on her postman uniform at the beginning of our preschool day and spend the day saying this poem. The poem is included in a fun preschool unit from Confessions of a Homeschooler.
Reading:
We had a few books we really enjoyed for our unit on the post office and post men. Our absolute favorite was The Jolly Postman. The girls asked for this one over and over.
They also enjoyed the story of Owney, the Mail Pouch Pooch and Send It! Mailbox Magic was also read more than a few times in our preschool reading time.
G read her first chapter book in the backseat of the car! We were pretty impressed with how she worked her way through The Giant Postman.
NOTE: Some of these books do not seem to be readily available on Amazon at this time, but we found them easily through our local library system.
Activities:
Paper Plate Mailbox Craft
The first day we worked on our preschool post office unit, we spent some time creating paper plate mail boxes. I found the idea for the mail boxes from Toddler Approved (she has amazing ideas over there!). To decorate ours, I laid out our box of stickers for the girls to use as many as they like. We also used crayons to color the grooves of the paper plates – a FUN sound for sure! We put the girls’ names on each of the boxes and hung them on the wall. They loved having a mail box!
While we were doing this craft, we also colored our own mail man hats and attached headbands to them to make them easy to put on an off throughout the week. We got the template from the printable pack from Confessions of a Homeschooler.
Post Office I Spy
As an outing for the girls at the end of the week, I set up a quick scavenger hunt activity for them to do. And they were very, very enthusiastic about it! You can read more about it over here. While we were at the post office, we mailed out some special things for the grandparents.
Post Office Pretend Play
I had almost as much fun coming up with this pretend play set up as the girls had playing in it! Check out all the details for our post office pretend play over here.
Stamp Matching Game
I created a simple matching game for G (4 years old) using stamps from Picklebums post office printables and some Sesame Street stickers we had on hand. You can create your own matching game using whatever you have on hand. I laminated the pieces so they would last longer. G loves to play memory matching games.
I created a separate matching game for W (almost 3) using some heart stickers in various colors. I thought they would be geared more toward her since they were all hearts, but the colors were what needed to be matched. I also laminated these to extend the life of the matching game. She really enjoyed it and was able to learn the rules of the game and play independently.
Cut and Paste Stamp activity
I again used the stamps from Picklebums’ post office printables to create another activity for the girls. I cut the blank stamps into long strips and allowed G to cut out the stamps, create her own stamp designs and paste them onto envelopes. For W (not quite ready for scissor work, though she snuck it in, as seen in the picture below), I cut out individual stamps and let her create her own stamp designs and paste them onto envelopes.
After the envelopes were stamped and ready to go, the girls really enjoyed putting them in the mail drop box.
As the week went on, G spent much of her time “writing” letters to various people she loves, while reciting what she was “writing.” She really shows some promise as a creative writer!
Mail “Sort” activity
I created a mail sorter for the girls pretend play post office with some paper lunch bags. I took a group of card size envelopes that would fit into the cubbies I created and wrote the numbers 1-6 on each envelope. I placed sticky notes with corresponding numbers into each of the cubbies. The girls had fun recognizing the numbers and then placing them in the correct place in the mail sorter.
That was our week (plus a little more) in preschool teaching the girls about the post office! And what fun we had! Next up in our Community Helpers Unit: Police. Stay tuned! This is going to be fun!
