Last summer, inspired another Peace Corps volunteer's project from Africa I read about, I began the
POSTCARD PROJECT for all my art students. I started by asking Facebook friends, family, and all the folks on my email list to send my art students at St. Luke's Primary a postcard reflecting something about where they lived, and promised we would create postcards to send back to who ever sent us a card. The response was tremendous! Soon the postcards starting arriving in my Peace Corps mailbox---it was exciting to see each one (and, I must admit--I sure enjoyed getting all that mail!) and read what folks wrote to my students. So, a big
SHOUT OUT to all of you who participated and sent us cards!!! The children enjoyed reading them, and in the process learned about various areas of the US.
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| Here is the completed map with postcards (so far) |
The next step was to obtain a big map of the US---I finally resorted to asking a fellow PCV who traveled back to the US to bring me one. My original idea was to place the cards on each state but I soon saw that would not work as the cards would cover over the whole map. I wanted the children to be able to read the cards and handle them, so I made a pocket to hold each card and used red yarn to point where the card came from. This system worked great, so I kept adding to it as cards arrived.
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| My home state of Alaska is well represented, with cards from Anchorage, Juneau, Sitka, Port Alexander and Gustavus... |
A student busy drawing a card to send to the US...
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| the East Coast has cards from Maine, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New York |
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the West Coast is well represented, with cards from Washington, Oregon, California, Mexico, and then inland-- Arizona, Idaho and Montana
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| 2 cards the St. Luke students painted to send ..... |
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| and a few West & Midwest states : Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, |
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| a 3rd grader drew and colored this card... |
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| We even received several cards from other countries, including : Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Canada, Greece and Sweden |
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| The students were quite excited when they received hand painted cards from a Middle School Art class in Moraga, CA--over 20 handmade cards with messages on them from kids near their age! they were thrilled. Here are a couple of cards they made to sent back to the Middle School students....we sent some already, but have more to send... |
All in all, this has been a fun and informative project for my students. They really enjoyed creating postcards in a variety of mediums. We are still making postcards to send to folks, so if you have not received one yet--just be patient please---you will get one eventually.
