Postcards and Letter Writing

I am teaching postcards and letter writing in the next few weeks. I like to start off by reading lots of books. Here are some of my favorites:

LOVE this book. A little girl writes letters to the Tooth Fairy and she write back. Very high interest for first graders.

Great book with fun pictures. Polar Bear writes to his friends which are bears living in other parts of the world. Goes great with a geography unit too.

A fun book with lots for familiar characters.

After lots of exposure to letters, we do some interactive writing together and write letters to other classes in our school. I also introduce postcards and we do a few postcards together. Then I set up a basket full of stuff animals. (I have tons of beanie babies) During writing time the kiddos can write a postcard to a stuffed animal. They LOVE it. I'm excited to participate in the postcard exchange this year. I heard about it this summer over on Mrs. Saoud's blog called Primary Graffiti. We will write a postcard to 49 states and get a postcard from all 49 states. I know my kiddos will LOVE it. After awhile, we start to write letters to each other as well as family and friends outside of the classroom. I have to give a little reminder speech each year about NO mushy-gushy writing and to only write NICE things. Those boys just DON'T like getting those love letters :)

Here are some of the forms I use for the letters and postcards. I hope someone can use them. Click on the picture to download. Graphics are from Melonheadz, Scrappin Doodles, and KPM Doodles.

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Have a great rest of the week.