DIY Mail Box and Letter Writing Practice

This easy DIY mail box is sure to inspire lots of great pretend play. Use it sneak in a little learning, too. Our mail box beckoned us to write letters.

DIY Mail Box

This is a very easy tutorial for building a mail box. Find a large cardboard box {or whatever size you want for your mail box}. Carefully cut a door in the side. Use a utility knife to cut 3 sides of a rectangle. The fourth side of the rectangle folds down. You now have a door to your mail box.

Cover the cardboard box in duct tape. We used regular silver duct tape, but you could use any color or pattern that strikes your fancy. How cool!

I placed duct tape over the edges of the hole I cut out to make the edges smooth. I folded a piece of duct tape in half and then taped it to the door of the mail box to serve as a handle. Easy!

Letter Writing Practice

Try using some or all of the following supplies:

• envelopes
• paper
• index cards
• pencils/pencils
• highlighters/markers
• scissors

As soon as the mail box was finished, Aiden drew pictures on paper and started mailing the papers. We have a pile of envelopes that the heat ruined {they sealed themselves shut}. I opened them up and gave them to Aiden to use for his mailings.

I saw the opportunity to practice writing actual letters and words. Since my son was drawing pictures to mail, I thought he might be interested in writing letters to people, too.

I started to write a few sentences on index cards. Aiden chimed in with some recommendations. I wrote the sentences and names in dashed lines.

My intent was for Aiden to write on top of the dashes. He didn’t like this idea. He didn’t want to write whole words and he didn’t want dashes.

I next wrote letters with a highlighter. This way he could write on top of the blue highlighter.

Nope. Aiden wanted to write with the highlighter. No problem.

I wrote the alphabet in uppercase and lowercase with a pen. Aiden traced the letters with the highlighter. In addition to tracing the letters, he asked if he could fill them in. The answer is: of course!

Then, he cut the letters apart, placed them in envelopes, and mailed them away.

I am happy that I found something to help Aiden want to practice writing.

What will you mail in your mail box?

More Letter Practice Ideas

• Try this Letter Sounds Race to practice letter recognition, letter sounds, and get the kids moving.
• A Find and Write Letter Scavenger Hunt is sure to get kids excited about handwriting.
• Letter Tracing with Cars is a fun way to practice proper handwriting strokes.