Mail time!

We went shopping the other day and I went a little crazy in ABC mart- I really needed a few new pairs of comfortable, casual shoes. All my shoes are either falling apart, or stained, or just plain uncomfortable, and ABC mart have a good range of comfortable shoes. Which, lets face it, is needed after I spend all day chasing after a little one and have to be able to take off at a moments notice to save him from dashing out in front of cars. 

Pichan's first, two syllable word was "mailbox". He loves checking our mail box. Maybe his fascination comes from when I was posting flyers for my classes last year. Anyway....

I thought, with his love of mailboxes, and the fact that we have three empty shoe-boxes (and we were bored inside, but I didn't want to get changed out of my lounge clothes to take him outside) I should make him his own mail box.

I really didn't go to much effort. Just cut a hole in the top, and then you pull down to access the mail (this is how our Japanese mailbox works). We also decorated them with crayons to make them pretty (and to kill time). Husband even wanted to join in the fun and get a letter from Pete. 

We started out with just a plastic shopping bag, and some random bits of paper folded like letters for him to post.

The is progressed to envelopes, and then to envelopes with drawn-on stamps, and then we printed out some stamps on the computer and glued them to the envelopes (I just printed out old US sample stamps with cats and dogs).  

We upgraded to a blue cloth bag for him to stick his letters in. 

He has been having great fun riding up on his pretend motorbike and posting the letters. And, tearing open the envelopes. 

What we like most about this new activity, is that it is mainly an 'imagination' activity. There are no fancy, store bought mailboxes or anything, so hopefully it will foster some good imagination skills. 

We also wrote "M"'s, "D"'s, and "P"'s on the envelopes, and will write them on the mailboxes so that the next game will be matching the letters with the right post box. He loves sticking things in tiny gaps, so playing 'mailman' is a great little activity for him.