A fellow homeschooler (thank you Gail) turned me on this website awhile back. Knowing that my youngest son was an avid stamp collector, she thought this would be a great way for him to get more international stamps. Boy was she right. David soon had postcards from such countries as: Belgium, Chile, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Slovenia, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
All our postcards were written in English, but they sometimes included a few lines in their native tongue. It was always fun to use Google Translate to see if we could figure out what they said. Some of the people we corresponded with, even went above and beyond the call of duty, and send us additional stamps for my son's collection.
Here's how Postcrossing works:
#1. Signup for a free account.
#2. Request an address to send a postcard.
#3. Mail your postcard (with an assigned Postcard ID number).
#4. When your postcard is received, you will then be eligble for someone to send you a postcard.
NOTE: You can have up to 5 postcards traveling at a single time.
Whenever my son and I received a postcard, we would use it as a teachable moment to learn about where in the world it came from. One great resource to tap into was Google Earth, which allowed us to visualize where our pen pal lived. It was so fun to learn about cities and towns that we'd never even heard of.
In addition to receiving cards worldwide, we sent postcards to people in: Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, Dominican Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Singapore, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, and Ukraine. It was interesting to watch how long each card took to reach it's destination and we loved the comments we'd see posted from our recipients. Several of our pen pals even scanned in our postcards and posted them to the Postcrossing gallery.
Our favorite Postcrossing connection was with a woman in the United States. The Postcrossing member supports American soldiers by sending letters, cards, and gift packages to US Troops stationed overseas. Striking up an email friendship with her, we ended up sending and receiving postcards to several soldiers stationed in Iraq. We later worked with our local cub scout pack to send additional cards and letters to the soldiers. It was a wonderful feeling for the kids to reach out to the military and say "thank you" for their service.
So if you are looking for a realistic way for your kids to really experience World Geography, you might want to check out this website. There is no cost to join Postcrossing... the only expenditure required is for the postcards and stamps you will purchase.
Postcrossing Demo
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