The lost art of letter writing

Is writing letters truly a lost art? One of the parents used these words when I explained to her what we were doing this week. She was thrilled with the idea that the girls would be writing letters in a world of email and other forms of social media.

However, our focus was not really how to write a letter, but rather to explore it as a form of communication and learn how to correctly address an envelope. However, after observing the girls struggle with content ideas and letter structure, it may be something we need to return to!

The girls are doing this as the first of a long series of challenges towards their communication badge. This badge does not exist within the Australian badge syllabus so we are using the ear create-a-challenge badge instead. Expect to see our challenges towards this badge a lot over the next two terms.

Below is a sheet of directions I made for each Patrol to assist them to correctly address their envelopes. All pictures and information are directly from the Australia Post website. Be sure to check out their great resources for writing various types of letters and the history of communication. 

How the activity worked:

• Each girl drew a name from a hat - only using the names of girls that were present at the meeting. This was the girl they would be writing their letter to.

• The girls split into Patrols to write their letters and address their envelopes.

• Before handing out the stamps, the written envelopes had to be shown to an adult. This step is really important! About one quarter of the unit has to rewrite their envelopes due to mistakes, the most common being forgetting to leave room to correctly place the stamp in the top right hand corner!

The Brownies had a lot of fun and i'm sure will be excited to be receiving their letters in the mail over the coming week!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Share your thoughts! Letter writing: lost art or thing of the past?