Saturday, August 14, 2010

Postcard Exchange 2010

About every other year or so we participate in the Five in a Row Postcard Exchange with other FIAR users. We put them up around our US map (though there are a few international cards usually) and enjoy looking them and some activities with them. This year we had some really fun home made cards (seems postcards are not readily available like they used to be). I think one of my favorites is the yellow maple card from Tennessee.

I think some postcards are still trickling in, but for the most part they are here and I'm planning to "Starting the New School Year" activities with them. Things like:
  • graphing how many cards we got from each state/country
  • pin pointing the location of each landmark/destination on our maps
  • researching some of the destinations we haven't heard of before to find out more
  • calculating distance between some of the locations
  • preparing a reasonable itinerary if we to travel and see the destinations
  • finding out which is the closest and furthest away from our home
When we are finished with the cards, we'll take them down and put them in the scrapbook we have full of postcards from previous exchanges. Right now they are in a small flip book, but I'm thinking of getting something bigger so all of them can fit in one big book for fun.

I'm in the preparation for school mode at the moment and you can see just a glimpse of our workboxes there under the map. This week I vacuumed them all out (dust and cobwebs gather there easily in a basement room) and I took out all of last year's schooling to be put away. Many notebooks stay assembled and we take the content from the previous year out if there isn't much room- like for math.

Anyone else try a postcard exchange? I highly recommend it if you can pull one off through an online community. Such fun!

8 comments:

Kori said...

I am glad to see this! I am signed up for a postcard exchange and I don't have a clue where to go buy postcards!!! I remember seeing them everywhere as a kid and I collected them at various times. But I don't know the last time I saw any for sale? So if you can share some of the homemade ones, I would LOVE to see them!
Thanks for the post with activities too. Those would be fun

Fairly local said...

Hey Heather, the postcards look great! We hang ours on the front door. I like looking at them. I also put your Christmas ornament up with them.

That is a good list of activities you are doing with the postcards. We just do a tally of how many from each state or country and color a map and file it away. Good ideas!

Heather said...

Kori- I get mine at my local grocery store- Wegmans.

Do you have a tourist spot nearby? That's another good one.

Click to make the picture bigger and you can tell which ones might be homemade. The leaves are homemade and others used pictures they took for some.

One woman from Alabama took a photo and made a postcard with some fun thing from the USPS. So, check out their website for postcard making!

Heather

Mary Prather said...

Heather -- how did you get involved with a FIAR postcard exchange? We are using FIAR and LOVING it... and I would love this opportunity for my children. Thanks!

Heather said...

http://www.fiarhq.com/~gbprnhrz/forum/index.php

Just visit the FIAR forums and either start one or wait for one to come around. : )

There's a lovely group of FIAR users over there at the forums. Jump in anytime!

Julie H said...

Awww...I sent the Yellow Maple from TN, glad you liked it!

What great ideas you have, sounds like fun!

Heather said...

Such a great post card Julie and I just love maples. :)

Heather

Mary Prather said...

Hi Heather - I just left you an award at: http://homeschoolsuccess.blogspot.com/2010/08/my-first-blog-award.html