You get a letter in the mail. It has your name on it, not your parent's or an older brother or sister or Grandmother or Grandfather, just you! Isn't it great to get a letter of your own?

Now, what would you most like to be inside that envelope? A letter from your favourite Grandmother? A coupon for a year of free candy? Free tickets for you and your family to travel to anywhere in the world? A letter from someone you like at school telling you they like you too? A nice cheque giving you money and a new bank account of your very own? A coupon from your family promising you a day where you can do everything you like to do, with all of them? A week off school, without any homework to catch up on later? What would be in your envelope?

When did you last write a letter to someone? It is so nice to get a letter from your family but it's also nice to send one to them too. It's fun to buy or make some fancy paper and envelopes, maybe even fancy pens to write with. You can find pens with coloured ink. I saw some this week at the mall. Make sure to test your pen before you buy it. The one I bought didn't work so I have to take it back to the store and see if they still have the same kind.

The next thing you need to do is get addresses for the people you want to write to. Your parents will likely have all the addresses for family. Or you can get a phone number or email address and get it from the very person you want to write to. Keep all the addresses written down. You might consider getting yourself an address book and add phone numbers, email addresses, birthdays as well as the snail mail address. If you have space and want to be really efficient you can even add details like each person's favourite colour, hobbies, things they like to collect and anything else that would be helpful to know when you are writing to them.

Letters are fun to write. Just think of what is going on in your own life and tell someone about it. Did you have a good day at school? Did you do something special on the weekend or during the week? Sometimes the everyday little things are just as nice to read about as something really special. Besides, it would take you a long time to write a letter if you only wrote about the big blockbuster things in your life and skipped all the everyday stuff. You can also write to ask them how they are doing. If they write to you look at their letter and ask them questions about things they wrote. That way they know you read and appreciated their letter. Everyone likes to be appreciated.

Have fun writing letters. You can send birthday and holiday cards too once you get into it. Letter writing is a nice hobby, it's not very expensive and you can make other people happy. Don't always expect a letter back, it's very nice to get one but not everyone finds it easy to write letters in return. If you have Grandparents or Great Grandparents they love a letter from family. You would make their whole day!