The Jolly Postman or Other People's letters written by Janet and Allan Ahlberg and published by Puffin Penguin Random House was my favourite book as a young child. It is brilliantly done. It involves the Jolly Postman delivering letters to well known book characters. There is an envelope on each page that you can open and inside is the mail that the character receives. I love that it is interactive, uses well known characters and is a fun read.
Activities
Blind drinks taste test
Gingerbread baking and decorating
Teddy bears tea party
Postbox making
Post office making
Invites to teddy bears tea party
Thank you letter
Box town making
Postbox hunt (by walking, bike or scooter)
Post office trip (and questions)
Posting letters
Cooking/Food
Due to the Postman being offered lots of different beverages on his delivery route, there are a few things that you can do that are food related. There a few drinks mentioned including; green tea, milk, tea and champagne (though I would just keep this drink for yourself). A fun activity could be a blind drinks taste test. Get a range of different drinks you have in, blind fold your child/children and encourage them to guess what they are drinking. This is a fantastic taste memory recall activity and makes them think about different flavours. You could also incorporate them smelling it first and this then uses another of the senses. Another activity could be making some gingerbread and then your child/children can decorate the shapes you make. I think another really good activity to go alongside this book would be a teddy bears tea party (any soft toys can be invited though, not just teddy bears). You can have this at the table or on the floor on a nice blanket and encourage your child/children to be as involved as they can with the ideas for the food, making the food and the setting up. They love being involved and feeling in charge.
Indoor
As the story is about a postman the most obvious activity is to make a postbox. You can do this using an old cardboard box, a bit of paint and paper (be aware, if you lose anything you might want to look in the postbox first because the missing item might have been posted). If you leave the bottom of the box open it is easy to retrieve whatever is posted inside. This can help improve co-ordination due to the hole for the post only being so big and young children love posting things. If you want to step this activity up a bit you can incorporate the postbox into a post office. Just put the postbox on a table, add a couple of postcards, a notepad, some crayons and some stamps and an inkpad (if you have some) and you have a lovely role play area set up for your child/children. If you are planning on doing the teddy bears picnic activity then your child/children can write invites to who they would like to come and if they have anybody they need to write a thank you letter too then this could be a good time. This will show them the importance of writing clearly on an envelope and how a letter should be set out properly. Finally, if you have cereal boxes or smaller cardboard boxes available then your child/children could create a little town with doors that include letterboxes and they can put postboxes dotted around so that people can post their letters.
Outdoor
Postboxes are scattered all around so you could go for a walk and see how many your child/children can spot or you could all go for a bike ride or a scoot round as you will get more area covered. You could have a trip to the local post office and your child/children could see how it works. They could have some questions ready to ask the people that work in the post office to learn more about it. If your child/children has written a thank you letter to someone then they could post this in a letterbox and they can have a look at the information that is included on the front. You could also explain to them how times have changed and that emails are letters online and these can be written formally or informally just like paper letters but they don't need to be posted as they are sent online instead
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