Hilary gave me a great idea last week. She wrote a post about the history of mailboxes.

I commented that I couldn’t remember the last “actual letter” that I had mailed. I’m not talking about sending off bill payments, or cards. I mean an actual letter.

She answered my comment and stated that “a real letter or nice appropriate card might amaze and please someone hugely.”

So I thought that it would be a good idea to send each student in my class a hand-written letter. I’m going to start working on them this week and then I will send them through the mail. I will include a stamped envelope in the letters so that the students can just address the letter properly and send it back to me in the mail.

This week I will teach lessons on letter writing so that the students will be familiar with the different parts of a letter and how to write and answer one correctly.

This will be a required homework assignment. That is why I am going to include a stamped envelope in each letter I send. I know some students might have a hard time getting a stamp and I don’t want that to stand in the way of them completing the assignment.

I think this is a great way to get a real-life application to what we learn in the classroom. Letter writing is often included in standardized tests including the EQAO. Students need to be familiar with it.

I’ve also heard of a teacher that allowed students to pass notes in class as long as they were written in proper letter format and in full sentences. The thought behind this was that any writing the students are doing should be encouraged. I don’t think I’d try this with my class. Perhaps it would work better with an older class.

The key thing here is that we should be writing letters in our classroom. Thanks for the idea Hilary!  I love it when I can get inspired by other blogs and comments. So please leave a comment below or if you are a teacher and have a great tip to share, please consider writing a guest post. Please contact me, I’d love to hear from you.

Don’t forget to check the “new” table of contents page where you can easily find all of the tips I’ve published. They are grouped by theme as well so you can find what you need to easily.