How it all started

It all started with a map, a grade 3/4 class in Waterloo Region, and a teacher wanting to make learning meaningful by bringing communities around Canada into her classroom in a unique way.

The birth of the Canadian Postcard Exchange took formation.

There was tons of enthusiasm about the exchange that we received more postcards than we imagined. Our secretary would even come hand deliver them to our classroom.

At our school, we almost covered and entire bulletin board but we wanted to know more. So, we searched the web for travel magazines and brochures from all over our beautiful nation. Than, the grade 4s made their own brochures for each province. This was exciting while the grade 3s explored communities in Ontario.

This still wasn't enough, the students wanted more!

We learned about our Canadian identity through the different eras. We created artifacts to demonstrate our new learning. In the picture, check out the yarn dolls, totem poles, FNMI frame drums, and canoe. We discovered what made our country unique while learning the major challenges that different groups and communities faced in Canada.

We were inspired by the Group of Seven and their landscape art that we wanted to create some of our own masterpieces.

We learned about coniferous and deciduous trees and mindfully created 'inchies' from our own perspective using a variety of mediums. We examined the land of our prairie provinces as we learned to paint with water colours. The east coast and their lighthouses and their abundance of fish inspired our East Coast art. The snow-capped mountain peaks that stretch the west made working with oil pastels fun.

In the north, the northern lights danced across our page as we used chalk to blend the magestic colour of the aurora borealis. The hues of our sunset in the background of our Toronto city scape finished our year of Canadian culture.

Students were so excited to name their artwork collection that it created quite the stir in our hallway.

We had so much fun! That was 2013-2014.

We were filled with excitement that we wanted to share the opportunity.

Fast Forward a few year which brings us to 2017 -2018 school year. We grew to just over 400 classes participating nationally in the Canadian Postcard Exchange. It was exciting to see what other classes were doing with their postcards.