Around this time of the school year, we find that friendships can be tested from time to time. It seems, one minute we’re the best of friends, and the next we “Don’t ever want to be your friend ever, EVER again!”. It’s hard to keep up sometimes…Can’t we all just get along?!
To help our students remember that friends make the world go ’round, we’ve introduced beginning letter writing with our “Message Center” routine.
We keep a permanent Message Center station set up in our class. It has everything our students need to write friendly letters to their classmates. We provide paper, envelopes and stamps for the taking.
We provide two cups to keep who they write to fair and square.
One cup is labeled “Pick Me” with their names written on popsicle sticks (name down – no sneaky peekers!), and the other labeled “I’ve Been Picked”. Students choose a name stick to determine who they will be writing to, then place that pulled stick into the “I’ve Been Picked” cup so they are not chosen again until every stick has been picked and the Pick Me can is empty.
They also place an “I’ve Been Picked” card inside the mailbox of the recipient. This way, if any name sticks accidentally end up back in the “Pick Me” cup, we don’t end up with multiple letter writers for the same student or any arguments about who picked them first {insert first grade argument here – “Nuh, uh, I picked him first.” “No, I did!” “No, I did!”} This happens... sometimes…a lot. So, the extra addition of the cards was just one more reminder that they need to choose another friend…no arguments!
Students can use the “Friendly Greetings” sentence starters to help get their letter going. This also keeps some variety from letter to letter and steers them clear of the all too tempting “I like you.”, “You’re cool.”, “You’re fun.”…you get the idea.
When finished, they fold it, stick it in an envelope, address it, stamp it and deliver it to their friend’s mailbox.
Here is how we store the paper, envelopes, and rubber stamps. They can choose their own stamp…nothing fancy, but these drawers hold all they need.
BIG rule in our class –
Nobody gets mail, until everyone has mail.
This cuts down a ton on the “Can I get my mail?, Can I get my mail?” chatter that you know will happen. It’s like a domino effect…one asks, they all ask!
~Another BIG rule thus was created~
If you ask, the answer is no mail today. mwahahaha…
When all mailboxes are stuffed, it is mail delivery time! The kids love reading their letters to themselves and each other. We ask them to each personally thank the person who took the time to write their letter. Then, they take their letters home and we begin the whole process again!
We’ve added our Friendly Letter Writing Message Center to our TpT store for FREE.
