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Two In Tow & On The Go | Let’s talk about snail mail
When was the last time your kid addressed an envelope? Like, with the actual stamp and addresses in all the right places, and then successfully placed it in a mailbox that wasn’t in your playroom?
… Exactly. Not that often, right? Snail mail has become a fading practice for many families with younger kids. So let’s revisit some of the basics with your kids through free printables, fun USPS facts and plans for a virtual story time.
Next column
You can also consider this your friendly primer before my next Behind the Finds column, which involves a very cool, very vintage thing Gig Harbor’s post office once did that I randomly stumbled upon … on eBay. Service journalism meets local history rabbit hole. My love language.
So grab your nearest kiddo (well, don’t be weird about it) and settle in for a read-aloud about letters, stamps and fun. If you’re craving a screen-free afternoon that sneaks in a little American history and maybe inspires your kids to drop an actual handwritten letter into one of those iconic blue mailboxes, this is it.
Free printables
This 40-page U.S. Postal Service Activity Book
The U.S. Postal Service has a free 40-page kids activity book to print at home.
A Kids’ History of the United States Postal Service can be downloaded for free from the USPS website.
2023 United States Postal Service
The download walks through nearly 250 years of mail-moving history, from the American Revolution to today, with photos, stories about the people (and the animals!) who carried the mail, plus mazes, paper airplanes, envelope-addressing challenges and a design-your-own-stamp page.
#Lifeskills for the win.
I already know Clara would treat that stamp design page like a high-stakes art commission. Wyatt would speed-run the mazes and call it a day.
Clara, age 11, in front of the Gig Harbor Post Office at 3118 Judson St. last May.
“We hope this book helps to teach kids about the important role the Postal Service played in uniting the nation,” postal officials said in a press release. Grandparents who still slide crisp $5 bills into birthday cards: This is your moment to fold in some other fun pages.
The National Postal Museum
The Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum in Washington D.C. offers a ton of online activities, games and quizzes for all ages. In its Just For Kids! section, you’ll find instructions for the following paper crafts:
If you’ve got a piece of paper, an envelope and a stamp, you’re in business. This guide walks kids through where to write the address, where the return address goes, and where that tiny but mighty stamp belongs. Because yes, placement matters.
Use common household supplies to build a paper mailbox out of construction paper, scissors, and your awesome imagination. Instant mail station in your kitchen.
Honestly, between the how-to guide and a DIY mailbox, you’ve got yourself a full afternoon activity that ends with your kid proudly dropping a real letter into a real mailbox.
In fact … I created a printable for just the occasion. I call it: Tonya’s Official Two in Tow Handwritten Letter Template. Creative, right? (This is why we leave the headline/naming skill to our editor).
Plus a free local Gig Harbor coloring page
Elsewhere, you can also download my snazzy coloring page of Gig Harbor’s very own post office building on Judson Street. “Made” is a fluid word, by the way. What I actually did for the first time was prompt one of those online image generators to transform a real life photo of the Gig Harbor Post office into a cool line-drawn vector file. And it did the job. Then I brought it back over to my design program to add some final touches.
I think I’ll print off a few myself for Clara and Wyatt to break out the pens and write some nice long letters to each of their grandparents.
But first, excuse me while I go see if we still own stamps.
Fun facts, postal style
While I’m digging through my junk drawers, here are some fun facts to enjoy courtesy of the U.S. Postal Service’s website. Who knows? These deets could take front stage at your next Oceans 5 Family Trivia Night! You’ll be well prepared.
Source: facts.usps.com
Stamps
The U.S. Postal Service holds the copyright of all its stamps issued after Dec. 31, 1978.
Copyright
More than 500 of those copyright registrations are filed to protect the stamps’ printed artwork.
No packaging required
This next one just might be my favorite postal fun fact of all: You can mail certain, wildly specific items through the U.S. Postal Service without any packaging. No bubble wrap. No box. Just an address written on the item itself and the postage to pay for it.
We’re talking:
- Coconuts: Yes. An actual coconut. Just write the delivery address and your return address right on the husk with a permanent marker, weigh it for postage, and that hairy little vacation friend ships as-is. No cardboard required.
- Potatoes: Say what now? It appears that people actually write their address on it, weigh it, slap on the postage, and off it goes. The Postal Service says of this: “Let someone know they are special. Send a tater.” … Aaaand I just cannot improve on that marketing angle. Plus, just knowing that some postal worker, somewhere, has gently placed a potato next to a birthday card means we’re all better equipped for life now.
- Bricks: Who are these people mailing all these random things?! (Answer: Me in a week, now that I know about it) But, yes, individual bricks can totally travel through the mail no problem. Just address it, weigh it, and add the postage. Boom. Done. Here’s some heavy-a** mail headed your way! For this one, the Postal Service quips: “Send that special someone a brick of affection.” Is it practical? Likely not. But is it unforgettable? Absolutely.
Produced by U.S. Postal Service Corporate Communications
Don’t mail babies, you guys
What can’t you mail? Babies. Well, humans in general. You’d think that’d be a no-brainer. But in 1913, the government had to make the no-people rule explicitly clear after an 8-month-old baby in Ohio was mailed (and, reportedly, delivered safely) by his parents to his grandmother, who lived a few miles away.
By hovercraft?!
Planes, hovercraft, trains, trucks, cars, boats, ferries, helicopters, subways, bicycles, mules and feet all help postal carriers deliver the country’s mail.
Huh?
Why, yes indeedy, they did say mail-by-hovercraft. “Due to Alaska’s size, terrain, and limited road system, the USPS utilizes alternative and sometimes creative modes of transportation … even hovercraft, to deliver the mail,” according to a 2025 report by the Alaska Department of Public Transportation.
New stamps
The Postal Service issues approximately 35 stamps each year.
New stamp stories
The new designs drop every month. And if you love a good sneak peek, the 2026 lineup is already teasing some. There’s even stories behind the stamps are posted at stampsforever.com.
It’s a whole thing
Apparently, they even have free public ceremonies for new stamps. Which means you can just … show up. Witness history. Clap enthusiastically for a Bald Eagle or Route 66 or whatever tiny masterpiece is having its big day. The locations for such festivities are posted here. Sadly, we just missed the “First Day of Issue Ceremony” for the Bruce Lee stamp celebrating the actor and his martial art skills. That stamp event was held in Seattle on Feb. 18, 2026.
YOUR ideas (and your kids’)
A committee suggests new designs for the stamps each year. But they say the public is welcome to submit ideas or even their own artwork to be considered for future designs. Here’s a presentation about it. Idea: How about a bunch of us send in our kids’ drawings? That’d be super cool. Well, copies of them. My fridge really needs the 250 pieces of art currently stuck to its side panel.
Next time on “America’s Next Top Postage” …
More than 580,000 people recently voted on which retired stamp design to bring back for an encore run. The voting crowd response was so immense that the Postal Service said it nearly broke the website. The winning/most-voted design will be announced at the upcoming Boston 2026 World Stamp Expo in May.
New mail trucks coming
U.S. Postal Service news says new electric mail trucks are rolling out nationwide through 2028. Their new shape oddly reminds me of the Apatosaurus from Pixar’s 2015 animated film, “The Good Dinosaur.”
(Tell me you don’t see it. I’ll wait.)
Vocabulary test
Who here can pronounce “philatelic” out loud? It’s a fancy word for the study of stamps and all things postage. See? You learned something new already.
(Philatelic History Quiz, anyone?)
Virtual Story Time
The National Postal Museum also hosts a Virtual Story Time from 11 to 11:45 a.m. Eastern Time on select Mondays. For us on Pacific time? That’s 8 to 8:45 a.m. PST. Yes. A bright-and-early postal party. Coffee for you. Story time for them. The 45-minute sessions are designed for ages 3 to 6 with a caregiver, but all ages are welcome, according to the Story Time page. They’re free, but you do need to register. Check the museum calendar for exact dates before setting your alarm.
Unless you have a child under 5, then you’re just destined to never sleep.
See ya out there!
RELATED >>> History columnist Greg Spadoni wrote about post offices in his June 3, 2024 column titled: Where was the Gig Harbor Post Office in 1951?
Stamp Gallery Exhibit in Washington D.C. Image courtesy of Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum. Photo by Juan Carlos Briceño.
Tonya Strickland is a Gig Harbor mom-of-two and longtime journalist. Now in the travel and family niche, her blog, Two in Tow & On the Go, was named among the 10 Seattle-Area Instagram Accounts to Follow by ParentMap magazine. Tonya and her husband Bowen moved to Gig Harbor from California with their two kids, Clara (11) and Wyatt (9) in 2021. Find them on Facebook for all the kid-friendly places in and around town.