Teaching And Bright Beginnings

       This week in the classroom, we tackled our addresses.  With Valentines Day coming up I asked my students to make a very special family valentine for someone that lives in their house, usually a mom or dad or both, sometimes they make it for the whole family or a grandparent if they are the guardian.  They were very EXCITED!!!  A lot of love went into those valentines.  Then yesterday, we took our valentines to the Post Office,  prior to going each student recited his or her address and then wrote their address on the envelope and added the stamp,  they were then ready for the mail.  Since we were learning about our addresses it was a good time to extend our learning to our community and community workers, with this week's emphasis being on mail carriers.  Also, lucky for us our Post Office is just right up the road, a 5 minute ride by bus.  We read some nonfiction books about mail carriers and the Post Office.  My little guys also practiced their motor skills with cutting and gluing to make a mail carrier hat of their very own to wear on our little outing.  The template for these can be found at makinglearningfun.com .  Now we are anxious for the arrival of those special valentines!!!  I think we learned a lot and by adding the trip to the Post Office, the mail carrier information,  students gained an extra purpose for learning his/her address,  gained community knowledge and expanded our vocabularies, and added an extra element of fun and excitement.  It always amazes me how many of my students have never actually been inside a Post Office until we go!!  Happy teaching!! 

A little extra:  I find it helpful that when having students write their addresses on the envelopes (which they did an awesome job at, I might add, the writing was truly their best and it was BEAUTIFUL!) it helps to make 3 lines for them with a ruler edge.  That way the first line they focus on the persons name (yes they are coping it on to the paper) then they recite their street address and copy it on to the envelope, and then they recite their city and state and copy it to the line and then below the line is the zip code.  Then we read it back again together and they will continue to recite and practice writing until they can do it independently. :)