Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Stamp Sorting : Geography and History in a box!

School interruptions...Nobody likes them. For this reason, I decided to delay the beginning of our school year instead of starting and stopping, starting and stopping and so on. I know a lot of you have been patiently waiting for me to resume my regular-content posts (thank you for your patience by the way!:) ) but I felt we wouldn't be off to a great start if we had one school day only to stop and resume later in the month. As such, school will really only be starting after our visitors have left (September 23) and posts about that week should begin to be published the week after. Until then, I'm afraid my publications will probably be only occasional. Please bear with me and preview in the meantime another material I've prepared for Adrian's use during his school time: the continent sorting stamp box; a geography teaching tool. 

Stamp Sorting Box Continent
Stamp Sorting Box; a compartment for each continent except Antarctica
(can't find stamps yet!)

This activity idea came upon me after I realized I wanted to do more "continental" activity than just present a traditional Montessori continent box. As we will be spending one week per continent, simply having Adrian explore a box as he wished seemed a bit lacking. I felt there should be some activities and some trays presented instead of just one giant treasure box to rummage through. For now, I am not completely putting aside the idea of making continent boxes as objects coming from the continents themselves will always be interesting to explore but I also want Adrian to enjoy what would normally be found inside a continent box more thoroughly. For example, while it is very neat to find stamps from many countries in a Europe box, what's a child to do with them? I pictured Adrian possibly sifting through them, maybe stopping at one if featured a train on it or something of the sort. I can't picture him doing much more with the stamps at this point if they're simply in a box...yet if I take the time to find stamps/money to buy stamps, I want Adrian to see their potential. I definitely wouldn't want to chance him dismissing them completely. As such, I went ahead and created a continent stamp sorting box per an idea found on The Hands On Homeschooler. From there, the stamps will be sorted according to their continent for the rest of the school year. After their initial sorting (quite elementary for a Kindergartner of course) more activities will be created for the stamps pertaining to each continent! :) What kind? You must stay tuned to find out. (Adrian will be studying Europe in just a few weeks) but for now, let me show you the Continent Stamp Sorting Box:

I started by covering one of Adrian's old sturdy shoebox with a neutral paper. I won't lie: I'd rather have a wooden box but they seem to be hard to come by. If I find a suitable one with six compartments and a lid, I'll get it but for now, this shoe box will do. Once the box and its lid were lined, I glued a color coded Montessori continent map on the lid for reference (The Homeschool Den) and then I cut six squares of construction paper: a red, a yellow, a green, an orange, a brown and a pink. These are of course, the colors representing the continents according to the Montessori map I had just printed and glued to the lid of the shoebox. The bottom of the box could also simply have been painted but I thought I'd use the same paper as I was planning on using on our stamps. :) To finish up the box, I used thick cardboard from used packaging boxes and cut the lengths needed to separate the shoebox into six and simply slid them snuggly into the box. Of course it is not the prettiest Montessori material ever built. That's why I said if I find a wooden box I'll get it but for now, it should do the job. :)

Color Coded Stamps Montessori
Stamps mounted on their Montessori continent color: ready for sorting

Once the box is finished, you need to start gathering stamps from all around the world. That is when I truly felt very, VERY, sad indeed. You see, I used to collect stamps when I was a young girl. I bought bags of stamps and carefully peeled them off the envelopes by soaking them, and would sort them by countries or theme, to finally lovingly adhere them to philatelic albums. And now, well, I'm not sure where my collection is. I think I might simply have tossed it when I got a bit older. Pff. Oh well. Thankfully, a lot of people are still collecting...and selling theirs so I bought a lot of 100 stamps on Ebay. It guaranteed me stamps from 90 countries for quite cheap (we're talking less than USD$5 here). Overall, it was a good deal (a few damaged, a few from the same countries). I'll start with these stamps of course but will eventually get more because I know children like lively colors, bigger stamps, animals, flowers, and other things they can recognize (I know I did!). When the stamps arrived, I sorted them by continent myself and proceeded to look at what country issued them. I liked how The Hands On Homeschooler added an extra layer of color for countries that no longer existed so I decided to do the same. All stamps coming from a country that had changed name or boundaries, or something alike was first put on a black construction piece of paper and then on its continent color. For all others, I simply put the stamps of European countries on red construction paper, the stamps coming from South American countries on pink construction paper and so on. For now, I did not laminate any of  the stamps after mounting them on colored paper. Adrian is a very careful little man so I do not think they will need any covering at this point. (I am also hoping he may want to start his own stamp collection like I did after manipulating these stamps so laminating the stamps would horrify him in the future! :))

DSC_0600
Stamps from former countries are easily identifiable with a black mat
and a history lesson on the back

When school starts, this box will be presented, along with a basket filled with the stamps for Adrian to sort by continent. Later in the year, we'll do activities with the stamps from the continent we are actually studying. As you've noticed, I have not made a compartment for Antarctica. At this point, I do not have any stamps from there and I am sure they are hard to come by (though they do exist apparently) but if I do get my hands on one, I'll add a white envelope on the inner lid of our box! :)



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10 comments:

  1. I've seen this idea a couple of times (I like yours the best) but I am curious where everyone is getting the stamps? Are you purchasing them through ebay? Thanks so much.

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    1. While I did have my own stamp collection, I bought the stamps you see here on Ebay from a seller who advertised his lot as stamps from 90 different countries. There was a total of 100 stamps and while a few were damaged and a few were from the same country, it was still a cheap option and all the stamps were already off the envelopes... :)

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  2. This is such a great way to teach Geography! I love the box idea andi love how u have gone to so much effort with ordering stamps etc!

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    1. Thank you Aisha! I hope my children will like the box too. If they do and find stamps interesting, I am most certain I will find thematic stamps to make the box more attractive to them! :)

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  3. Looks like fun and a great way to add to the continent boxes! I found your blog on the Pre-K & K community.

    www.joyfocusedlearning.com

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    1. Thank you for stopping by and for taking the time to comment. I'm always on the lookout for new ways to add to our "classroom". My son is very fond of the world and anything pertaining to the continents is something he is thrilled to see. I knew this box would make him very happy; much more than seeing stamps laying around... :)

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  4. This is another great activity. We made a stamp scrapbook with our stamps and it was very difficult to identify the country in some cases. You can get free stamps for educational purposes through the postal history foundation. http://highhillhomeschool.blogspot.com/2013/06/learning-through-stamps.html

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    1. Tell me about it. I haven't "played" with my stamp collection since I was in high school so I forgot a lot in between now and then and had to look up a few. A nice lesson in history for sure that I didn't appreciate as much back then as I do now. :) I did not know about the postal history foundation. Thanks for sharing the source. I"ll have to look into that if we decide to enlarge our collection. :)

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  5. Hello! Thank you so much for linking up at the Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop! This is such a great post, and I love this idea! Little one, and I have received mail from other countries, and I have saved them. Now I know what to do with them. :)

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    1. Great! I really wish I had saved my collection believe me. Stamps seem increasingly rare with all these electronic stamps. :( I'll be sure to keep the ones I have now! They are a great learning tool in so many ways! :)

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