Creating all of the stamps and cards  inspired us to role play as mail carriers! In the paperless world our kids are growing up in, the days of longing for a letter to arrive in the mail are nearly over. Nowadays, I even find myself hoping for a catalog or a piece of “junk” mail to arrive.  And, the countless bills we all receive through the mail hardly have the same effect as a nice, personalized letter does! But, none the less, my kids do know what the mail is and soon enough our stamping creations turned into creative role play!

Creating the Mailbox
For this activity cardboard building blocks worked very well for creating a “play mailbox.” I disassembled the square shaped block to act as the “mailbox.”  Then I taped the bottom of the square box to the tallest, rectangle shaped box, (because little hands tend to knock things over easily.)

If you don’t own these boxes don’t worry!  Simply think “outside the box” by using tissue boxes, shoe boxes, drawers, etc.

We set up several mailboxes down the length of the driveway to act as our mail carrier’s “route.” My children see our mail carrier ride up and down the street every day. So they put their imaginations to work and grabbed their ride-on toy, scooter, and bicycle to reenact our mail carrier’s truck.

My children even took it a step further by getting into the costume role by downloading the mail carrier hat template from the career costume ideas blog!

My children (and the neighborhood kids) really enjoyed this activity! Big or small, the kids truly enjoyed the role playing this activity provided. I even found myself going through the junk mail pile in the house so the kids had more mail to deliver!

When the role playing is through, be sure to save the beautiful creations your children made with their homemade stamps. Encourage them to write a letter to a grandparent, friend, teacher, etc. Or, why not surprise them by writing a personalized message in one of the cards your children created and mailing it (for real!) They will be so excited to receive it and to see that you used one of their homemade card creations!