Memorial Mail

With Memorial Day is coming up this weekend, I remind the kids of what we are celebrating.  Rather than tell them that we are commemorating those who have fallen in war, which is the true intent of the holiday, I opt for a less macabre explanation for my 3- and 4-year olds.  We are celebrating all of the soldiers who save us.  Briana asks me how the soldiers find out that we are celebrating them and I tell her that they get letters in the mail.  The kids want to send letters in the mail to a soldier, but I don’t actually know anyone overseas right now.  I tell them that they can send mail to a friend of mine who is being deployed at the end of the summer, but they want to do it today.  Of course.  So, we pretend. 

First we need a mailbox. 

Luckily I got a shipment of coffees from Keurig today and have the perfect size box.   I also got a mug as a gift from the kids’ school so I can use that smaller box for extra parts.  I have no plan in mind for how to make the mailbox, but that’s part of the fun and engineering/learning.  The kids and I can decide how to make a mailbox together.  Making a mailbox turns out to be really quick for the Mommy and takes all day for the kiddies – the perfect activity.

Here’s what you need:

1 Cardboard Box

1 Smaller Cardboard Box

1 Exacto Knife or scissors

1 Brad

Tape

That’s it. 

I get the box and tape the top closed.  Then I cut an n shape into the short side of the box using the Exacto knife.  This is the mail slot.

Now we can all already envision our mailbox and the kids have a blast opening and closing the slot.  Doing so makes it obvious that we need a handle.  I cut the bottom corner off of the little box and the resultant half square is our handle. 

I cut a slit for one side of the handle into the door of the box and push the handle edge through.  Then I mark where the other side of the handle needs to be, cut there and push that side of the handle through.  Then I open the door and tape down the handle ends to the perfect shape for the kids’ hands.  While I’m doing the cutting and taping, the girls start decorating our mailbox.

Now the kids are super excited and Briana keeps opening and closing the handle while telling us about a soldier who visited her class.  Then both girls make up personalities for the soldiers who they are “making mail” for – a girl who likes purple flowers, a boy who only likes flat, unfolded mail with stamps all over it, etc.

They start working on the mail.

They then discover that we don’t know when the mail is in the box, so we cut a side out of the small box and use a brad to hold it to the side of our mailbox.  It now goes up and down.

I also use this time to talk about mail to the kids.  I explain where our address goes, where the soldier’s address goes, and where the stamp goes on an envelope.  We also talk about why we can’t send a pretend lipstick and other things in the mail without a box and a stamp.  Briana gets to practice lots of writing today.

Like I mentioned before, the whole mailbox creation took about 15 minutes - mostly because of the explanation of Memorial Day.  The kids spend the rest of the afternoon decorating the mailbox and stuffing it with mail for different soldiers.

  

This is the perfect way to occupy the kids in the spirit of the holiday while you grill.

Happy Memorial Day, Everyone!

  

<3 Pedigreed Housewife