Role Play, Post Office

[Guest scole]

any ideas on what to use in the post office role play area? we have lots of unopened junk mail which staff and parents bring in, but are not sure how to set up and what to put in the area!! any ideas would be useful, thanks

[Guest]

Hi Scole

Welcome to the site and thanks for your first post. There has been some discussion before on the forum on the post office which you might find useful You can find it here.

Linda

[hali]

Hi

 

We have all the junk mail, a counter where a the postperson sits, a post box, telephone, keyboard, weighing scales, pens and pencils. Usually a kind member of staff makes up stamps and collects postcards and boxes for sending. We also have a collection of posters from the PO that we put around the home corner. Plus anything else that springs to mind as we go along.

[Guest rhodessj]

Hi Scole

 

I've been away so I hope my little adage isn't too late for you.

 

I did the post office during my planning (2weeks before end of term). I used all the "props" people have mentioned here and in the link provided by Linda. I made up various sized packages, parcels, letters etc. Some had addresses on them, some didn't and one of the children initiated conversation about what was missing on the package and proceeded to "write" an address.

 

The envelopes were provided by a local company who had changed printing details and were various sizes - I used a marker pen to eradicate the post-paid number, in case any inadvertently got posted!). I got brown paper from a recycling company locally, along with string etc. I wrapped up cereal boxes etc from our junk modelling area.

 

I took old stamps off incoming mail (rip off the corner containing the stamp, and soak in water for 5minutes or so and the stamp will separate from the paper - dry face down and then they can be glued onto another envelope (not for re-use outside of Pre-school you understand!)).

 

We used stampers & ink pads which were very popular, and our local post-office provided some receipt pads & recorded delivery cards and labels. I even got hold of an old sack. We used a till, a phone, pads & paper, scales and an abacus (kindly donated by my son, but "drawn" on by one lovely boy!!!), and topped it off with some postmans' hats & bags from the dress-up area.

 

Back up were books & stories about postmen & letters etc. I used a story from a children's comic about Postman Pat which I made interactive, and copied pictures of Pat & Jess etc. onto cards which I laminated with phone-numbers on and had a telephone activity where children had to choose somebody to telephone and have a conversation with their chosen character. The children absolutely loved the whole thing.

 

The only drawback for me was that they ripped open my packages within minutes... I was completely disheartened until somebody reminded me that the children were learning through this exploration and I satisfied myself that they learned more from this activity than some of the others available that week... My tip is to have lots of parcels available so you can replenish them.

 

Have fun with your activity.

 

Sandra

[Guest]

I have done something very similar to Sandra but based on the Jolly Postman Story . I used different fonts and made up a number of sets of envelopes with the addresses from the book ie Three Bears cottage The Woods, The Witch, Gingerbread cottage. Then around the nursery I placed a dozen coloured mail boxes with the address stuck onto the front. (large cereal boxes covered in colourful paper. ) The children then took a set of envelopes and had to find the correct postbox and deposit the envelope inside, at the end of the session we would check to see if all the letters had been delivered correctly.

We also asked all the children to bring in a stamp from home and then they sent a postcard to themselves at home, I typed out a sticky label for them with their address on it and they drew a picture/ wrote a message to their family. We walked to the local postbox and posted them, we had arranged to meet the postman so we saw him empty the box and take the post away in his van. we saw a video of the post being sorted at the sorting office. As the postcards arrived at their homes they were encouraged to bring them back to nursery to show that they had arrived. We invited a parent who is a postman to talk to the children he told us about some of the funny things people send through the post.