4 DIY Envelope and Writing Paper Templates!

Pen pals.

Did you have a pen pal as a child? Mine was a girl who lived in Wales whom I wrote to with my tales of primary school.  I sent her pictures. I talked about my favourite TV shows and music.  She sent me letters of her life in Wales which seemed so far away from me here in Sydney.  The anticipation of waiting for a letter, checking the letter box and then receiving the letter.... was so exciting!

This term in OT, I thought I would bring some of my childhood memories to life with my "OT kids".  I visit a number of schools and see lots of children who work on similar goals.  This term I have started a pen pal program with some of the children I see.  I have matched children of similar age and I am hand delivering letters between students so I won't be sharing personal contact details.  I am hoping that this will be a remote "peer support" system program where children will be motivated to write and write neatly!

But it won't be just letter writing!

Each OT session with me needs to target lots of goals simultaneously so I'll be including things we can make and give the other person.   This may evolve over the term but I'm looking forward to sharing some of my ideas with you. 

To start our pen pal journey, I asked children to write an introductory letter and make their own envelope!  For some children, this was the first letter they had even written!

I have created a set of DIY ​envelope and writing paper templates with a variety of writing lines. The writing lines include an ordinary line, my "Earth Paper writing lines" (see here for more information about this), a "bookmark" version of the Earth Paper lines in the margin for those who just need a little prompt and a green "short letter line" for those who need this support. 

The template has numbered instructions to fold the paper (it reminds me of an aerogramme -have you ever written on an aerogramme or is this showing my age... ) and form the envelope.  I have the children add a sticker to seal the envelope and write the recipient's name on the other side. 

I'm offering these templates FREE to subscribers because I know everyone loves a FREEBIE and it has been a while since my last FREE offer! (Note: Not all my printables and resources are freebies as I'm still trying to make a living and feed my kids!) Please make copies for yourself but direct others to my site to get their own copy.  Don't worry if you are already a subscriber, you won't be added to the list twice! 

Remember to "shrink to printable area" when printing. I printed mine on coloured paper for some variety !
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Not sure how to fold the writing paper into an envelope? Watch this video to see how! (Sometimes email subscribers have trouble seeing the video - try going back to the blog article online.) 

Did you have a  pen pal as a child?  ​
Have you ever hosted a pen pal program between students? 

Let me know if you try out this paper! You can tag @yourkidsot on Instagram or Facebook. 
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