It Came In The Mail- A Storytime Activity

#mtnwildstorytime is still going strong ! I have been really loving our weekly storytime and sharing our activities with you all. The list of books and activities I have is ridiculously long but hopefully I will get to all of them! For this week’s picture book , I chose It Came In The Mail by Ben Clanton . It is a story about a little boy named Liam who really wants some mail, so he writes a letter to his mailbox asking for something in return. His mailbox starts sending Liam all kinds of silly things and his pile of mail is overflowing with things like pickles and flying pigs and dragons. It’s a sweet and silly book that your child will adore.

This book inspired me to design a few simple stationary sheets for my own Liam to write a few letters to his friends and cousins that all live out of state. Everyone loves a handwritten letter, and all kids love getting mail!

This is a perfect time to talk about how to construct a proper letter and to have your child work on their penmanship and learn how to address an envelope. This could easily be a two or three week unit!

We talked about the parts of a letter: date, opening, body, closing.

Then we talked about all the details of a letter and went through a kind of checklist… Did they use capital letters at the beginning of the sentence? Are all words spelled correctly? Did they remember punctuation?

Explain to your child that there are a number of reasons for writing a letter. They could be thanking someone, sharing exciting news, to ask questions, to wish someone a good holiday, etc. But sometimes it is just nice to write a letter out of the blue to someone you care about! If your child is too young to write a letter, drawing a picture and mailing it to someone is great too!

We have lived away from family for over 8 years now, so keeping in touch with all our friends and family back home is so important to me. Showing people you took the time to write them a little letter or card is a way to show you care!

I may be a Grandma at heart for thinking this, but handwritten letters will just always be preferred over sending an email or text.

There are four printables to choose from… mountains or a rainbow and with a bubble for drawing a picture or without.

I spaced the lines very far apart from each other so early writers have plenty of room to write.

Click on the printable to open the PDF to print

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We spent the afternoon writing letters and drawing little pictures for loved ones and sealed the envelopes with plenty of stickers!

Setting up a little letter writing station can be as simple or elaborate as you want! We stocked ours with stamps, washi tape, stickers, pencils, pens, markers, crayons and colored pencils. We added the stationary, envelopes and a little bowl of lavender that he sprinkled into each envelope for a little surprise!

I wrote out the name and address for each envelope on our chalkboard so my son could copy it. We talked about what a return address was and why and where we place the stamps. There was quite a bit of new information getting thrown at Liam so I plan on going over this all with him several times so that he gets the hang of it. My hope is that I can instill an appreciation of a handwritten letters in him so that he will continue to take the time to do this throughout his life.

I hope this inspires you to start your own weekly storytime and to write a few letters to friends and family that would love some happy mail! Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram for a new picture book and activity idea shared every Sunday!

Happy reading!