You’ve Got Mail

Today I spent the morning with a class of Kindergarten children whom I had been with throughout the year. The teacher I will be working with for the next twelve weeks on an almost full-time basis set up the room ready for groups. One of these is an office type area, where the children can write.

Originally, my teacher explained that it was set up with scissors, glue and varying other items that you would find in an office. Though the problem was that the children thought of it more as a craft activity and were wondering what they had to make.

The teacher asked how I would modify this, knowing I will be on the class in the coming weeks/months. I explained that I would created a mailbox with the children and it would be a mailbox to me. The children at that table could then create letters to me and I

would reply. In conjunction with this we would explore letters in class {including emails}, have a range of words for the children to use and in the first few weeks I would sit and help the children write their sentence. Then they can pop it into an envelope and at the end of the twenty minute block post the letter. I would do this once a week and have a reply for the children the following week, and this would incorporate reading the letter and then replying.

Thoughts?

For me, I think it will take around 3-5 weeks before the children get the idea and concept of writing letters and replying. Though I feel that it will work extremely well if I put the effort in during those initial weeks.

For Year One or Two, this would work perfect and would require minimal supervision.

For children three-five years, this would work well, though less emphasis on the writing part {depends on the children you are working with} and could be letters to their family members.

{click on the image for credit}