This week's prompt for the postcard share is: de tempestate (about the weather)
Talk about the weather and use some key words and topics that you can use on a daily basis in your classroom!
This week's journal ideas are:
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Time for a practical post! For many of you (as it is for me) sending snail mail of this type is something that you may not have done in a while and, well, there is a whole world to this you may not have explored. This is just a quick post to lay out some things about the USPS you may not know. I apologise for those outside the US as I am not up to date on current rules for your own postal service. Feel free to comment below with your own tips of the trade! What is a postcard?Believe it or not, the USPS has rules on what qualifies as a postcard. This ranges from weight to size, although size is the main concern for postcards. Below are the rules from the USPS on postcards.
Postage RatesThe USPS lays out these rules for postage of postcards:
And Now... the Fun StuffWhen I first started sending postcards, I went to my post office and asked for postcard postage. I was given the forever "Love" stamps and the forever "succulent" stamps for local and international respectively. Then, I started to receive cards from other places. They were often decorated with a few stamps showing different things from the country they came from. My most recent card from Germany had 2 Peanuts stamps, 2 flower stamps, and a variety of others that were decorated. So, today, I started to explore the USPS website. We can do the same thing here in the US! You can order stamps from their website in a variety of amounts and with a variety of decorations. Often you'll see themes. Today I ordered some of the fruits stamps in denominations of $0.01, $0.02, $0.03, $0.05, and $0.10. I also ordered some special stamps showing a necklace from the Navajo nation and a lamp from Tiffany's. I am going to explore more for my international cards next month. I would strongly encourage you to check out these stamps every few months, especially for your international cards! They are a unique way to decorate cards with things that serve a purpose too. Now, one last piece of information before you go stamp shopping: What is the difference between a regular stamp and a forever stamp?
Happy Postage Hunting!Salvete!
This week's prompt for the postcard share is: de animali tuo/optimo (about your pet/your favourite animal) Write about your pet or a favourite animal of your choosing. Use some key topics that come in really handy in the classroom:
You can, of course, completely ignore this prompt. It is here solely for those who would like it. Share your favourite animal and their Latin name in the comments below! This week's journal ideas are:
Salvete!
This week's prompt for the postcard share is: de te (about you) Talk about yourself and use some key phrases that students and teachers can use every day:
You can, OF COURSE, completely ignore this prompt. It is here solely for those who would like it. Do you have a favourite way to say something or an idiom that fits this prompt? Share it in the comments below! This week's journal ideas are:
This is just a quick post of ideas that you can use for the postcards you receive. While you may not receive one each week, provided the group follows the list, you'll receive just as many as you send!
So... just what can you do with your Latin Snail Mail Postcards?
We can't all be Cicero. Or Vergil. Or Catullus. And, with a postcard we really shouldn't be. I want to challenge us to find our own voice when writing in Latin. I know we have all spent years and years reading the greats and trying to emulate them when we write, but I would say that our voice is just as important and, in this particular project, more important. I certainly don't want to discourage anyone from trying to mimic their favourite author but I would challenge you, if that is your goal, to consider the traveling journal project over the postcard share, for a few reasons:
So, how do we find our voice?
We write. We read. We write. We read. We write. We already have skill and knowledge in this arena and I am hoping this will provide a safe way to express ourselves as ourselves while enjoying, and practising what we love. Each week I'll be posting a new "topic" for our postcards. Feel free to follow it (or not). It is meant to help brainstorm ideas of what to write about if you are having trouble. I will stick to simple ideas that we can easily talk about in Latin. If there is a topic you'd love to see, leave a comment below! When I was young, I had a penpal in Russia. She was my age, also the daughter of a teacher, and loved painting. Due to growing up, and the apparent economic politics of the US postal service, we lost touch after a number of years of corresponding. Later, we found we other on Facebook. She is now a journalist living in the same town and I am a teacher myself, living a state away from where we began.
When I found her again, my love of getting and sending mail was sparked up. It has been a long time since I've gotten or sent mail just because, and so I began on a journey to find a "penpal" as an adult. And so, I ran across a few websites that host something called postcard shares or postcard crossings. In these lists, you are given a random address. You write a postcard and send it to that address. You are not guaranteed one back, because the point is sending and receiving mail and creating a wide community of snail mail lovers. Then I stumbled upon bullet journaling and the concept of a the traveling journal. In this, a small group gets together and shares a journal. They mail it back and forth, over and over until the notebook is filled with letters, artwork, photos, etc. While I could easily find a postcard group to work with, finding a journal group was near impossible, as many are already involved in a group. After sending my first two postcards (both to the United States). I received two requests from Turkey and in one of those requests was the ask, "please send me a sentence or two in your language." It got me thinking. What if I started a group of snail mail loving Latin teachers. It would be a unique opportunity to do a number of things:
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Our BeginningsThis came to me as a passion project while I was writing postcards in English across the world. One of the receivers had asked for a sentence in my language of choice and, of course, I sent one in Latin. It got me thinking, why couldn't we do this in Latin too? Check us out and join us! Archives
August 2018
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