I get asked all the time if I throw my son’s creations away. Most do get recycled but one we have used over and over again is our mail box. The other day my son was playing with it when I decided to capitalize on his desire to sort everything and make a post office sorting activity for him. Our letters were sorted by the name on the envelope but you could use numbers and sort it with the zip code , or for even younger kids use different color letters and sort it by color. My son loved this and it even sparked writing a fan letter to his favorite baseball player.

1. Gather your materials. You will need some boxes, paper, scissors, envelopes, pen, plain sticky labels and crayons. 
2. Start by writing addresses on the letters. If your child is able have them help or write the addresses themselves.
3. Write 44 cents ( or whatever appropriate stamp amount) on your blank labels.
4. Time to decorate. My son loved coloring these envelopes. He insisted on doing it all himself. 
5. While they do that depending on how many boxes you have write out the letters that will go in each box on paper.
6. Attach them to the boxes.
7. Next add on the stamps.  My proudest moment of the day came next when my son said we should purposely leave off the stamp and make a do not deliver basket for those letters.
8. So I made one quickly.
9. Time to play- I made a simple sign for our post office and our mail box came to play too.
10. Pop your mail in.
11. Dump it out.
12. Sort it.
13. Deliver it – we delivered it to various rooms of our house.

Book

Delivering Your Mail: A Book About Mail Carriers by Ann Owen is a simple book about being a mail carrier. The text is to the point and perfect for toddlers and young preschoolers learning about mail carriers for the first time. It focuses on not just what the mail carriers do but how it impacts the reader, which is paramount for young children who see the world through their perspective only. Cute beginner book!