Almost everyone has heard about penpals or has had one, this is fairly common place. And even postcard trading is familiar to most. However, have you heard of post crossing?
While checking out some other blogs, I came across
Make Geography Come Alive with Wall Maps! by OMSH. I love maps. My son loves maps. So I read it with interest as she explained how her family used the new maps they bought. If you check it out, you'll see how they've put the maps onto cork boards in order to use pins and string to connect photos with places. I'd love to do this, but I need to find some cork boards first ;-)
As November was Geography Month, OMSH solicited readers to post comments of how they explore the subject of geography with their children. It was within these comment posts that the mystery of Postcrossing was revealed to me.
Postcrossing, the postcard crossing project: "send a postcard and receive a postcard back from a random person somewhere in the world!"
Really, it's that simple. And free to sign up.
A well organised website, postcrossing.com, details all the
FAQ.
But it's just trading postcards, right?
Wrong.
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| Postcards From Russia |
Although you can login to the forum, separate from the official sight, and participate in all kinds of trading and tagging (themed trades whereby you tag the person who posted before you and then wait to be tagged), the official site is not about trading at all.
The official Postcrossing.com site is not a typical trading site. Here's how it works...
1) You sign up for free, set your preferences, and create a profile to whatever extent you wish. Part of this set up is providing the site with your mailing address, but it is not displayed publicly.
2) You "request" an address and postcard ID! The site will give you an address, an ID for that postcard, and the profile information of the person you are sending the card to. You can read the profile and get a sense of the kinds of postcards the person likes. You may choose to send a postcard that they would prefer, but you may send whatever you have. However! The whole point here is to make sure you write the postcard ID on it. I always write the ID in two different place to be sure it doesn't get obscured or misread. The recipient will register receiving the card using this ID. Only once your postcard has been received can you start expecting a postcard in return!
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3) Receive a postcard. Once the website has confirmed that your postcard has been received and registered, your profile name and address goes to the top of the list! But your address is still not publicly displayed; this "list" is not something everybody can see. Now, someone will "request" an address and it will be yours. This means you are
not receiving a postcard from the person you originally sent a card to. You are going to receive a random card from some random person who will be given your mailing address when they request an address. I love this randomness!
4) Register the postcard received. Admire your new postcard sent by some stranger miles away, read any messages written, enjoy the foreign stamps, then hop online, log in, and register the postcard as received. Write a thank you, short or long. And you're done!
5) Repeat! Request another address, write on the postcard, include the ID, and send. It gets addictive actually, before you know it, you're broke ;-) In the beginning, you are restricted to five address requests; you can have up to five postcards travelling at any given time. The more you send and prove your participation (your postcards
do get received and registered), the more you are permitted to have travelling.
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| Our Geography Wall! |
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| From Russia |
See, the beauty of this whole project, beyond the obvious objectives, is that you are ultimately in control over how much and when. There is no obligation or commitment! I love that! I'm a terrible correspondent; I'll always come through in the end, but that end might be a year later. If I have time and the postcard/stamps, I can send a card and then eventually receive one back (theoretically, barring postal mishaps). Furthermore, I do not have to respond to any of the postcards I receive as I've already sent out my postcard! The only thing I'm obligated to do is to register receiving the postcard with the ID on the card. I do however write a comment of thanks to the sender (done as part of the registering of the postcard).
Some other aspects to this game...
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| This Was From Lithuania |
Often people scan the postcards. They collect them in reality and virtually. I haven't bothered to do this yet and may never take the time to do it. However, I still have scanned postcards on my "
postcard wall!" Some are the scanned postcards that were sent to me-- if someone scans their card and sends it by mail, when I register it with the ID, it virtually becomes mine too. Also, several people have scanned the postcards we've sent them as I can now see them on my postcard wall under "sent" postcards, lol.
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| Our Latest Addition Is From Luxemburg |
Map Another function is the global map that will document all that you successfully send and receive with little flags indicating the locations with lines from your city to theirs. The global map is interactive and you can zoom in and out of it. The little flags are click-able and will reveal such details as location and the profile link to that sender/recipient.
Stats A stats page exhibits your activity in graph form, pie chart, and a table. How much you've sent and received, to or from which countries, and how long the postcard travelled are a few of the items displayed here.
Forum There is a forum you can sign up for too and it is somewhat separate from the official website. In here you can organise and participate in all kinds of discussions and other forms of trade, even trading items other than postcards.
What a fun way to learn about other cultures and geography!
For those inquisitive minds interested in how Lego bricks are made, this link will take you to an interactive video which goes through the stages of the process!
In their own words: "Welcome to Math Playground, an action-packed site for elementary and middle school students. Practice your math skills, play a logic game :and have some fun!"
Drawing Outside is the new children's gallery complete with a climbable landscape. Lots of textures, colour, and lines everywhere to explore. Kids can make rubbings of the textures or play with the magnetic table. There are two pieces of art on the walls with moving sections. There is a card with a search and find list and a video that runs constantly (silently).
If you live in the area or are visiting and if you are bringing children, make sure to pick up the "Let's Explore Art" booklet at the front desk. It can be a fun way for them to explore the galleries. It has search and finds, places to answer questions, and sections to draw in. It makes it more interactive!
I've really been enjoying picture books lately, especially beautifully illustrated ones. I think I read them to my son just so that I can read them, lol. I'm so selfish!
However, there are a few books that we specifically read every year. Two of them are the topics of this, um getting long winded, post.
First, A Seed is Sleepy by Dianna Hutts Aston and beautifully illustrated by Sylvia Long. Subtly packed with information the elegant pictures delight readers of all ages. The narrative begins "A seed is sleepy" and progresses with imaginative adjectives to "a seed is awake." It's just a very creative introduction or re-introduction to seeds and plants with a wonderful array of examples. I love the endpapers! At the beginning of the book, they are a double page layout of various seeds; at the end of the book, they are a double page layout of the plants they grow into. This book is very lovely and everyone should read it at least once!
The second book is what led us to the first book. An Egg Is Quiet by Dianna Hutts Aston and, of course, also beautifully illustrated by Sylvia Long. This gorgeous book prompted me to find more by this author/illustrator duo. So far it's just these two books, but Dianna Aston's website promises a third book (hopefully illstrated by Sylvia Long): A Butterfly is Patient (spring 2012).
Progressing from a quiet to noisy egg, this book travels the life cycle of an egg. Did you know eggs were colourful, shapely, clever, differently sized, artistic, and textured? Well, probably you did. But that's not the point! This elegant book is such an amazing introduction to eggs of all varieties with a splash of information to round out the experience. This includes a visual time line of three egg's developments: a chicken's, a salmon's, and a grasshopper's. And there are wonderful end papers here too! The first set is a collection of wonderful eggs (to scale I think) and the last set is a collection of the corresponding birds! It's fun to flip back and forth matching up the two. 
We are lucky here in Edmonton. Our Royal Alberta Museum has a wonderful display of stuffed birds found in Alberta. In fact we made a special foray into this section to check out those birds AND to check out the wonderful egg collection! I love the way the museum has designed the layout so that we can check out the local-Alberta found eggs as well as see samples of eggs from all around the world. They even have a section where they compare sizes beginning with a hummingbird egg and work up to an ostrich egg.
From their welcome page... "Welcome to Eggs - A Virtual Exhibition, the closest you may ever get to seeing wild bird eggs without disturbing birds at the nest. This virtual exhibit showcases eggs of the world with a special emphasis on the eggs of Alberta. The Royal Alberta Museum hosts one of the most extensive egg collections in North America. We have an on-line field guide with over 300 egg images as well as information on egg biology and a touch of egg trivia. So put on your virtual helmet and we'll visit some nests!"
At Tramline Virtual Field Trips, "A field trip {is} created with TourMaker {and it} guides you through a sequence of Web pages on any given topic. For each page, there is simultaneous commentary in an accompanying frame. You move forward and back through the Field Trip using the tour Control Panel and you can leave the Tour to explore links and return to it whenever you want."
Quite a few years ago I was challenged to identify a sudden infestation of bird that descended unexpectedly on our neighbourhood. I didn't see it at first, I heard it! Flooding through open windows was a cacophony of unfamiliar bird song. And once we looked? Everywhere, upon every surface, were a medium sized bird happily "scree-ing" away.
And our mystery bird: Bohemian Waxwings, go check them out and hear their song-- just imagine that song multiplied by thousands!And you think I'm exaggerating?!
In an odd moment of cleaning up my bookmark files I came across this "Child Care Theme Pages" website. In their own words, it is "Preschool Curriculum Themes for Daycare Providers, Teachers, and Parents! Book Lists, Song and Fingerplays, Preschool Arts & Crafts, Recipes, and Preschool Theme Activites!"
The Monterey Bay Aquarium offers live web cams on their website! But that's not all, they also have podcasts (most are less than 5 minutes with two new ones per month) and videos!
Web cams include: Kelp, Underwater Kelp, Sea Otter, Aviary, Wading Birds, Penguin, and the Monterey Bay cam (24 hour).
Take a journey over to the NASA Science website and you'll find all kinds of fun for all ages! Beautiful photos and, of course, tons of information. Keep up to date with science news or explore black holes.
