Postcard Project

Hopefully we have finished this round of tests and hospitals and can get back to "normal" life. God is good. Our journey was short. My girls actually enjoyed the change in routine because another homeschooling mom offered to have them join her boys for two days. The children went to a free concert, played bocce ball, collected beautiful fall leaves and did art projects. My friend even added a dimension to their Spanish study by reading aloud a book in Spanish and letting them try to figure out the words and understand the meaning of the story.

I recently was invited to participate in a yahoo group for a postcard exchange. Do I need another project? But when I mentioned it to the girls, they were very enthusiastic. We add our name to a database and then we are to send a postcard about our state to everyone else on the list. There are a lot of names! The girls already have a small postcard collection, and they want more.

So where do we buy postcards? Of course they are in abundance every time we take a trip, but here at home? I wish we had stocked up on our last trip to Lancaster or Gettysburg. Instead, last weekend we drove out to a local state park and bought 20 postcards. We need many more, but there wasn't much of a selection here. We figured each girl would write 10 to start. That evening they spent a couple of hours writing out all the postcards. They even had fun going to the post office and getting the stamps. Now they are anxiously waiting for the cards to come in.

None have come yet, so I am thinking of how to make this educational! Not just a project to collect nice cards. What would I like the girls to remember about each state? They already are pretty sharp when it comes to geography. We have several games on the states and they know their location and capitals. Some families are marking a map to see the origin of all the responses. I think we will do that too since we have a large U.S. map in our school room. But what else?

I finally came up with a one-page worksheet. It's very simple. It has a box for the name of the state and four categories: Capital and major cities, geography (mountains, rivers, etc.), history and important people, and famous landmarks. I think I will add date admitted to the union too. This sheet will not detract too much from the fun of their postcard project, but it will give them something to look back on and help them remember some facts.