Little Witch Hazel closed up her bakery and now a post office has opened. To mark the ending of our baking unit, we made a chocolate cake to celebrate the skills we practiced! The children helped measure, pour, sift, fold, mix, and decorate the cake which we enjoyed on a Friday afternoon. Most of the bakery unit revolved around practical life skills with a focus on food preparation and imaginative play.

Last week, we asked the group what they know about the postal service. We documented their answers and wonderings which led to research using library books Louisa got about letter writing. The primary focus of this new unit is building literacy skills and learning about community workers. Each child has a special mailbox drawer with their name on it. The children have been making envelopes, drawing pictures for classmates, and delivering mail to each others’ mail drawers. This has rein-fused the group with motivation to learn how to recognize and write classmates names.

The Mariposa children are also practicing writing common words used in letters like dear, to, from, love, play, etc. Louisa has printed and laminated the children’s home addresses to work on memorizing. We will be mailing letters home and learning the parts of an envelope to be able to properly label and stamp them.

In our imaginative play area, we added a cardboard box mail truck that the children helped design and create. Inside the truck, is a stuffed animal puppy who is based on a real mail delivery dog named Owney. We have a library book telling the true story of Owney the Mail-Pouch Pooch written by Mona Kerby. The children enjoy pretend feeding, caring for, and mailing letters with Owney. We hope this letter writing unit will spark enthusiasm for making valentine cards for friends this week and next. We look forward to celebrating Valentine’s Day and Lunar New year next week!