The Friendly Letter Man {Parts of a Letter+Song Freebie}!

Y'all have probably seen the precious little letter writing people floating around Pinterest--yes?!

Well, just in case you haven't, I'll show you mine! :)

Letter writing is a really fun topic to cover with kiddos because you can do SO MUCH. 

My Mentor Teacher had a precious mailbox in the classroom and the firsties would write to whomever, then put their letter in the mail and send it on its merry little way!

(...and then I would forget to check the mailbox and take the letters out. Ooops!!!)

I also love the letter writing ideas from {here}, {here}, and {here}. 

1: Erica Bohrer uses children's literature to teach writing, which I LOVE. 

2: Tamara from Teaching with TLC has a compilation of TONS of ideas to teach letter writing--parts of a letter, children's lit, songs, etc.

3: Amanda from Teaching Maddenness shares about her friendly letter writing workshop!

You'll definitely want to check out these links if you're teaching about letter writing any time soon!!

I am a Texas teacher and was using C-Scope at the time I made my letter man. I was to teach the kiddos about the parts of a letter using particular vocabulary--and after searching good old Pinterest for an anchor chart idea, I found this guy.

Does anybody know the source?! I can't find the original source anywhere!!

I loved the idea and immediately knew that I wanted to make one! So I did.

:)

P.S. Sorry for the poor picture quality--it was taken with my phone!

We named our friendly letter man Jeffrey! 

And Jeffrey is cuuuuute with his little googly eyes (at least I think he is :)). 

Because we love to learn actively and looooove to sing, 

I used the song below to teach the parts of a friendly letter! 

I keep a copy in my binder of songs so that I can pull it out whenever it's letter writing time. 

 My kiddos had so much fun and a whole lot of learning was going on!

Thanks kevinandamanda.com for the fonts and clker.com for the graphic!

Click the picture for your own copy. Woohoo!

After we all knew the parts of a letter by heart and we're done getting our groove on, we put our Jeffrey in the writing center. 

Our writing center included:

pencils and fancy pens

anchor charts

letter writing paper (lined with space for a picture and just lined)

envelopes

class mailbox

etc. 

He lived in the writing center for quite some time for the kiddos to use as a reference. 

They loved having him nearby while writing!

The anchor chart that I had found on Pinterest got the idea from Teacher Vision. Below is a free printable on their website! It details the parts of a letter and gives an illustration of Jeffrey's cousin!

Click {here} for the free download from Teacher Vision!

I hope you can find something that's helpful/useful! This was the beginning of letter writing in our classroom and I'd love to hear what you like to do!

Letter writing has so many real life applications and your kiddos will love sending some snail mail.

Everybody loves getting a friendly letter. 

:)