By RHEA-FRANCES TETLEY
Staff Writer
About 100 kindergarten and TK students from four classrooms at Valley of Enchantment Elementary School were able to take a walking field trip on a sunny day to visit the Valley of Enchantment post office on Wednesday, Feb. 4.
Students from Mrs. Dosee’s class thought the walk was really fun. “It was really sunny,” said one girl. The children were all smiles because they each had brought a Valentine they had created and addressed at school, and they got to mail it to their parents. Each child also got to hand-cancel their own letters with the old-fashioned hand rubber stamp. The rubber postmark was from the Cedarpines Park post office (92322) and had a tree on it, reflecting the cedar and pines trees in the forest.
Next, each student put the envelope into the mailbox in the front of the post office. After hearing about how the mail moves, they got to see behind the scenes and visit the back side of the post office boxes that their parents take the mail out of the front on each visit. Then the students also got to place mail into the back sides of some of the post office boxes, acting just like a postal worker.
“I want to be a postman when I grow up,” said one smiling boy from Mrs. Endeman’s class. “It was fun to see the back side of the post office,” and “I got to put some mail into the back of the mailbox” and “There are so many little boxes back there,” were some of the comments. “My mommy has never seen the backside of the postboxes and I have,” said another boy, rather proudly adding, “I am going to tell her all about it.”
Christine, one of the Crestline postal workers, explained to the children how the mail system works and how the mail gets to their post office box for their parents to pick up, as they were stamping their letters.
Each student put their letters into the mailbox to be sent to their parents.
Luis Cervantes, the postal officer in charge of the Crestline post office since Ken Cooper has retired, had 8×10-inch postal booklets, telling the history of the post office and about some of the stamps that celebrate historic places in America that he handed out to each child. The teachers were handed enough postal pencils to give each student one when they returned to the classroom.
It was a perfect day for this walking field trip and the Valentines will be in the mailboxes for pick-up before the holiday.
“I am so glad I got to come to this post office,” said one girl. “We pick up our mail here, so I will always remember this, every day when I come here.”
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