Mail Carrier Memory Game

It's Community Helper month with Mother Goose Time! Sweet Pea and I are having a blast learning about different people and the jobs they do all around our small town. Today was "Mail Carrier" day, and although our mail carrier doesn't walk door to door, Sweet Pea recognizes his special delivery truck everyday and waves from our driveway saying "Bye, Mailman."

So when she was able to be like the mailman, she was so excited!

Mother Goose Time supplied us with a bag that could be stitched together with yarn (a great fine motor skill for older kids), but I went ahead and prepared that for her the night before. 

I wish I had let her try to stitch it together whether or not she would have been able to do it or not.  I know for next time.

After Sweet Pea received her own mailbag, she went right up to the mail carrier picture, pointed to him saying "Mailman," and put on her new "purse."  She's always been into purses... I don't even tote a purse...unless you count her diaper bag....so her love of purses and bracelets always makes me laugh and smile.

Anyway, onto our memory game...

We played our game on the coffee table, by placing the main 4 delivery place cards into some plastic lunch meat containers that I hoard kept.  You could totally put these pictures in different places in your room or even all over your home and do this activity.  Shes just 2 and 3 months, so we keep it a little simpler. 

To play the game, I showed Sweet Pea one of the 16 postcards, told her what it was, and asked her where she should deliver the letter.  She then placed the postcard in the plastic container of the one she thought was best. 

This little postcard had the same matching ambulance on the destination picture so it was much easier to locate.  Some postcards had an image that was not present in the destination picture at all and challenged her in thinking of where to place the letter.

In this picture, you can see the "Teacher" on the postcard in Sweet Pea's right hand. There was no teacher on the main destination card.  It was these cards that she stood there for a bit and really thought where it should be placed and I was amazed that she knew exactly where to place the card!  She truly astonishes me!  She didn't even turn to me to see what I thought or get approval

 (I would totally do that).  She just thought about it and placed the card.

Sweet Pea is an observer... always has been.  In this game, she had to play close attention to details.   When I asked her, "Why did you put your bird postcard there?" She pointed to the bird on the roof and said, "Bird."

When Sweet Pea completed all her deliveries, she put all her postcards back into her mail carrier bag.  Trying to keep her bag open and slide in the postcards proved to be quite challenging, and she became frustrated with holding the bag open. I helped her at this point keep her bag open, and she worked on sliding all her cards into the carrier bag.
But I now know some fine motor skills we need to work on. :) 

 Once all her mail was placed in her bag, she put on her "purse" and gave me the cheesiest grin!

She loved this game! In fact she and I played it again that evening, and then when Daddy got home from work, she just had to show and play with him!

Our entire family is enjoying playing and learning with Mother Goose Time!