Postcrossing is an online project that allows its members to send and receive postcards from all over the world. When you sign up you can request a certain number of random addresses of other postcrossing members. You send out postcards to these addresses and the users log them via the site when they receive them. Then, your address is sent to other random users who in turn send postcards to you.
My goal was to receive at least one postcard from every Spanish-speaking country. In addition to the random postcard addresses, you can search their database for other members by country. I was quickly able to make contact with people from almost every Spanish-speaking country and arrange to exchange postcards. I was overwhelmed by the generousity of these strangers. They not only sent me postcards, but books, CD's, brochures, newspapers, magazines, coins, and a lot more. They were very interested in the idea of sharing their country and culture with students in the U.S. and I was excited to make these postcards a part of my class.
Each week we have a "Culture Day" where I would share one of the postcards. We would read the messages, locate the countries on maps, and look up the tourist attractions on the cards themselves. I bought a box of postcards, and each student wrote a thank you postcard to one of the people and talked a little bit about themselves and our school. I would then send a thank you postcard to each postcrossing member that contributed to our project.
As our collection of postcards grows, I look forward to thinking of ways to take this project further. I have toyed with the idea of a traveling postcard display that could visit the various elementary and secondary buildings in our district. Perhaps a future grant idea, I don't know.
At any rate, if you are looking for a way to make culture real and interesting for your students, I would definitely recommend becoming a member of Postcrossing. I have to admit even I learned a lot of some countries that I previously only knew very little about...the side effect being that my travel wishlist has grown quite a bit. Happy Postcrossing!
My goal was to receive at least one postcard from every Spanish-speaking country. In addition to the random postcard addresses, you can search their database for other members by country. I was quickly able to make contact with people from almost every Spanish-speaking country and arrange to exchange postcards. I was overwhelmed by the generousity of these strangers. They not only sent me postcards, but books, CD's, brochures, newspapers, magazines, coins, and a lot more. They were very interested in the idea of sharing their country and culture with students in the U.S. and I was excited to make these postcards a part of my class.
Each week we have a "Culture Day" where I would share one of the postcards. We would read the messages, locate the countries on maps, and look up the tourist attractions on the cards themselves. I bought a box of postcards, and each student wrote a thank you postcard to one of the people and talked a little bit about themselves and our school. I would then send a thank you postcard to each postcrossing member that contributed to our project.
As our collection of postcards grows, I look forward to thinking of ways to take this project further. I have toyed with the idea of a traveling postcard display that could visit the various elementary and secondary buildings in our district. Perhaps a future grant idea, I don't know.
At any rate, if you are looking for a way to make culture real and interesting for your students, I would definitely recommend becoming a member of Postcrossing. I have to admit even I learned a lot of some countries that I previously only knew very little about...the side effect being that my travel wishlist has grown quite a bit. Happy Postcrossing!
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