Zoe at Playing by the book recently sent me an email inviting me to participate in an International Postcard Swap for Families that she is hosting. I quickly agreed to play along, because I think the Monster will get quite excited about it, and it's a great opportunity for him to see that mail can be more than the stickers and hockey cards that his grandpa sends him from Canada from time to time.
The idea is this:
Send postcards to 5 families (she will provide us with 5 addresses of others participating in the swap), and receive postcards from 5 different families. She is hoping that there will be enough international participation that each of us will receive mail from at least 3 different countries.
(Monster is into countries. Carnivorology is still his primary passion, but he digs countries, too. So this will be a great way for him to maybe learn about or feel a connection to some new ones. Of course, when the World Cup starts in June, he will be in flag- and country-learning bliss).
Your postcard can be store-bought or home-made, and you can write whatever you want on it, though she suggests offering a kids' book recommendation, as an interest in kids' literature is what brings her readers together. She also recommends some books to read with the kiddies about sending and receiving mail.
I'm planning to let the Monster tell me what to write, if he wants to, and I also think that recipients would probably love to just hear a little bit about where we live.
All the details about how to sign up are here. The deadline for signing up is Friday, April 30th.
And if, by chance, you are one of the people I get assigned to send a postcard to - be patient! - mail takes its time here in Macondo.
3 comments:
Thanks for this post! It's great :-) We've currently got 119 families signed up so it's going to be quite a swap. Oh, and I should let you know that I've got a series coming up on Playing by the book about picture books written by authors from / set in the various countries taking part in the World Cup. Like you and Monster the world cup seemed like a really good opportunity to us to learn more about different countries. I'd REALLY appreciate some suggestions from you about Argentinian picture books - either ones that are translated into English, or ones that aren't but that you still think are fantastic. Perhaps you could email me a few suggestions?
this is a lovely idea. Zoe left a comment on ,y blog about it which I completely forgot about until I read this. i think it could be a super way to start teaching the kids about other countries. I think we'll join up, thanks for the reminder
We're looking forward to it, Zoe. And your upcoming series on countries in the World Cup sounds great - too bad I don't have easy access to English-language books here. I will think about some good Argentinian books to recommend...
Heather, I'm glad you're going to join too! The more countries (and families), the better.
Post a Comment