Collecting Postcards - A Brilliant Homeschooling Tool

Why Postcards? Because it is fun and educational at the same time. My son absolutely loves receiving a new postcard in the mail and spends the next week discovering all about where the postcard came from.

I will show you how we stumbled upon this brilliant hobby, what we do and where I get my postcards from.

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Photo Credits: All the photos on this page are either taken personally by me or from the pages they are linked to where you can buy them from.

When my son was two and a half we had a dilemma. All the jigsaws that said 'for ages 2+' were no match for him.

Then one day I came from work to see my son super excited. My partner had bought him a new jigsaw puzzle that he thought was just the best. It was a jigsaw of the world map. I read the box and it said 'for ages 6 and up' . I said "He can't do this, it's to old for him". My partner just grinned and replied "he's already done it!'

Now, I love travel and I absolutely adore learning languages. So looking at this world map puzzle really got my creative imagination going. I had already begun to teach him how to count in German, Chinese and Spanish and now I had a chance to show him where those places are. Not only that but it had all the flags at the bottom as well so there was another learning subject.

He can now finish the puzzle in hardly anytime at all - but that's not the point. Once it is together we choose a place and I tell him about it and some of the language. It's currently his favorite thing to do.

My extended family went on a holiday up the north of Australia and while they were there they sent my son a postcard. He was thrilled to know that someone had sent him something in the post. Below is a list of all the reasons why he loved it and why it makes such a wonderful homeschooling lesson.

He loved the card and was fascinated when I told him all about where they were and showed him the location on his world puzzle.

This gave me an idea. I bought a couple of random postcards and posted them to him. One of a bird so I could teach him about Kookaburras, and one of a Kangaroo so we could look at them.

It was a great plan, but I soon ran out of ideas. I facebooked my friends and some sent postcards from where they were - but they all came at the same time and then stopped again. I needed another idea.

• Everyone, especially children love getting things in the post. It's always exciting to hear the mailman's motorbike idol in front of your post box. Even I love it as long as it's not a bill!
• Postcards have pictures on them that children love to see.
• It has their name on it so they learn to recognize their name and address.
• They are so excited about receiving the postcard you are gaurunteed a captive audience while you tell them all about where it is from.
• It helps learning to read.

Fiverr is a website where people offer to do completely random things for $5. I love checking out all the things on here.

It is here I found that people will send you a postcard for $5. So I tried it out. My son was so excited to get another postcard and I was able to choose where it was coming from so had a lesson all planned. It was perfect and there are tonnes to choose from. I do one a month so it's not too expensive and we are getting postcards from places I know I couldn't get them from any other way.

Then I had another idea. Why don't I do it too? Afterall, If I just do two a month that covers the cost of the one I buy.

First they are blu-tacked to the learning wall while we do an ongoing lesson on them. I usually leave them up for the month and we just try to discover as much as we can about the place on the postcard in that time.

Then when we receive a new postcard in the mail we take the old one down and put it in the album before learning about the new one. It really has become a bit of a ceremony!

This way we can refer back to the old postcards anytime.

I always check eBay for everything and this is no exception. This way I can grab some extra ones cheap.