CHUH Kindergartners At Canterbury Feel The Love From Around World
Kindergartners at Canterbury Elementary are feeling the love from all across the globe. From 13 states and nine countries, to be precise.Teachers Lisa Stewart and Andrea Briggs had seen some cute posts on Facebook pages of teachers collecting postcards from around the world and decided to adapt it to their International Baccalaureate unit on Who We Are and Where We Belong in the World.
With a simple request posted on their personal social media pages, the two classes began receiving mail. Nearly 50 postcards, greeting cards, Valentines and letters have arrived at Canterbury since the end of January.
Students have studied stamps, noted different stationary, looked at images of famous landmarks, and found the locations of senders on two separate maps, one of the United States and another of the world. So far, mail has come from France, Costa Rica, Germany, multiple islands in the Caribbean, Canada, England, and even the Philippines. A former student who moved back to Ireland also sent along a letter.
“This has really helped the students see where we are in the world,” said Ms. Stewart.
In conjunction with this project, they learned about how post offices operate, even mailing Valentine’s to their own families. This involved learning how to address an envelope and affix a stamp, something easily lost on a digital generation.
They even invited in their neighborhood mail carrier and hand delivered their letters to her. Over the course of the next week, they excitedl
y reported when their Valentines had arrived at their own homes. “The students were super excited to get their mail” said Ms. Stewart, adding that this activity underscored the IB unit of How We Organize Ourselves.Their mail carrier loved the fun idea and her supervisor even offered a visit to the post office for the children to see how it all works. While that offer came too late to add another field trip to their calendar this year, Ms. Stewart and Ms. Briggs hope to take next year’s class on that journey, as they again request mail from around the world.