Well, today the “Super Top Secret Mother’s Day Projects” left our house and are now in the hands of the US Postal Service. And back on Monday, when I said that these would arrive to the grandmothers “possibly on time”, what I meant to say was “almost certainly late”. But the thought counts. Right?
To go along with the theme of mail, I decided to teach Zach about mailing letters. I read this idea on some other blog, that I didn’t save, and now I can’t link it. But the idea is not my own. And really, this can be done a million different ways–letters to Santa, letters to family, letters to soldiers, etc. But I decided to follow the advice I read on that other blog and have Zach mail a letter to himself. That way he sees the letter going out AND coming to him. Once he gets the concept, we can have him send letters to other people.
So, I had him start by coloring on a note card. This lesson comes with a warning for other moms: do NOT, for one single second, turn your back on your toddler if you are letting them color with permanent marker, not even to simply answer the ringing phone. You will regret it (but WHY did you use permanent marker in the first place, Erin? I don’t know. A lapse in judgement).
Writing his letter
If anyone has tips on how to clean this, let me know. I think we ruined our dining room table today.
Oh yes, he colored on that dining room table so quickly I wouldn’t have been able to stop him if I’d seen it while it was happening. Funny how it’s like pulling teeth to get him to make that many marks on paper, but the dining room table is apparently much more fun to color.
On the inside of the note, once he was done coloring, I wrote a little message. I figure we can track how long it takes a letter to get to us (though I imagine it will only be a day or two, since we sent it to ourselves). In case you can’t read it, it says: “Dear Zachary, We mailed this letter on Friday. The mailman delivered it to us on ______________.”
Perhaps I should have said, "Letter Carrier", I think our "mail man" is actually a "mail lady". Oops.
Then, we took it out to the mailbox.
Carrying his letter
Into the box. Hey, look how "urban" we are, graffiti on the mailbox!
They pick up mail from this box every morning at 10:00am and it was after 10:00am when we did this. So, I imagine it’ll get picked up tomorrow and delivered to us Monday or Tuesday. I’ll post a follow-up when we get to check our mail and receive his letter!
What did Zach learn today? Well, we talked about how a mailman delivers the letters. And that we put our letter in a mailbox and then a few days later the post office delivers it wherever we want! And how letters get delivered to our house too. And that we were sending presents out to Grandma today.
What did Mommy learn? That it’s called permanent marker for a reason. I could have done a numbers lesson here, along with trying to teach him our address, but he had gotten bored by the time I put the card in the envelope to address it. We’ll do that another day. I also had to do the stamp myself.
Marker on table — I’ve had good luck with hairspray, and friends who swear by toothpaste (but test a spot, because toothpaste can affect the finish, I think). 🙂 Fun to read about your everyday doings… keep going! 🙂
Thanks!! I will try it!
I haven’t used one before, but would the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser take the marker off?
It might. I thought about that. I may check them out. I’ve used one before in an apartment I lived in once. It took the paint off the wall (along with the pen). But for a table, it might not be so bad.
Mr. Clean CAN work (can you tell I’ve had experience with these things??) … but can also affect finish. Make sure you test!
OMG, I LOVE your blog. How fun and smart! I need to revisit this in a year or two when I need ideas of how to fil the days.
As for the table, I would put it up on ebay and say that it was signed by Bob Dylan or Michael J. Fox. You’ll make a ton.
As for the mail carrier… We look forward to checking the mail every day. We live in the country and we have a female carrier. So we call her the FE-mail-man, which I believe may be ripped off from the Simpsons. Major points if you get him to use this term. Anyhow we look forward to her visit because you can hear her coming from a mile away. Her MailMobile is super loud and you can hear her gun it from mailbox to mailbox, so if you listen carefully, you can make it to the road in time to giver her letters or chat with her….
Keep up the great work!
Thanks Patrick! Our Fe-mail-man (LOL) is sneaky. I see the trucks parked down the street, but we never see her walking down the street.
[…] Tags: mail, mailing letters, receiving letters Today Zach got to be on the receiving end of our mailing a letter lesson. In all honesty, this letter may have come yesterday, but Mommy didn’t check the mail. So, […]
[…] I had my child use permanent markers to color on the jugs. We did this BEFORE the infamous dining room table incident and is where we got the permanent markers to use for that other project. But, I used permanent in […]