Celebrate National Postage Stamp Day

Another American holiday that’s celebrated on July 1 is National Postage Stamp Day. It commemorates the issuance of the first U.S. postage stamp, the Two-Cent Blue, on July 1, 1847. The stamp was designed by James B. Longacre and featured a portrait of Benjamin Franklin.

The Two-Cent Blue is one of the most famous postage stamps, but it wasn’t the first. The first adhesive postage stamp, the Penny Black, was issued in the United Kingdom on May 1, 1840. The Penny Black was designed by Rowland Hill, a British schoolmaster who is credited with inventing the postage stamp. Hill’s idea was to create a system where mailers would prepay postage, rather than having the recipient pay for it upon delivery. This system made mail more affordable and efficient, and it quickly caught on around the world.

In the early days, postage stamps were made of paper and were not perforated. This made them difficult to use, as they had to be cut by hand. In 1854, the first perforated stamps were issued in Switzerland. Perforation made it much easier to use stamps, and it quickly became the standard.

If you want to celebrate National Postage Stamp Day (whether you live in the United States or not) you can:

visit your local post office, looks at and buy some stamps
write a letter or card and mail it
design your own stamp with a blank stamp coloring page (like this one from Eduprints)
color in stamp coloring pages — Mr. Nussbaum has a collection of the 50 states stamp coloring pages, which are just so cute!
start a postage stamp collection or check out the collection of the US Postal Museum
learn some stamp facts — for example, did you know the most expensive postage stamp ever sold was a British Guiana 1c Magenta, which sold for $9.5 million in 2014?
do some pretend play post office play — little kids love putting “stamps” on envelopes and writing “letters”

[Photo via Kenmore Stamp]

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Learn about American Samoa for Kids

I’m in deep denial about the fact that new year is almost upon us again! It’s been the fastest and the longest year at the same time, and I can look back and see some good things as well as some things I wish had gone differently.

Doing a year in review with your kids — whether in the classroom or at home — is a good way to capture some of their memories and the things they really liked about the year gone by.

There are a lot of different printable year in review worksheets you can use if you want to make this super easy. Here are links to a few (often part of larger posts about NYE celebrations with kids that are worth a read, too):

Teach Beside Me has lots of fun printables fro the end of the year, including a year in review that covers favorite memory, funniest memory and the best book they read, among other topics.
NurtureStore‘s version has space for a self-portrait and prompts like favorite toy, best day out this year and future dream job.
Remember favorites, their “best idea” of the year and have room for setting goals for next year with this one from The Keele Deal.
The year in review from Yes We Made This has room for drawing or writing and includes things like something they learned, a memory they made and a place they visited.

Of course you could pretty easily make your own year in review for the whole family to do that asks questions based on what you most want to remember. (Favorite video game? Best friend? Favorite family memory?)

And if after the year in review you’re ready to look ahead a bit, Mrs. Merry has new year’s resolution printables to inspired kids to look ahead and set goals for things they want to try. You can totally fill this one out as a grownup, too.

[Photo: Mrs. Merry]

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