How mail gets from your mailbox into the

sky!

Warm-up Questions

What is a post office?

What is a mailbox?• Have you ever written a message, tied it to a

balloon, and let the balloon go? • Do you think messages can be carried that way?

Have you ever written a message, tied it to a balloon, and let the balloon go? Do you think messages can be carried that way?

Believe it or not, a long time ago, some people in a country called France tried to send letters to their families by tying them to balloons.

But unfortunately, not many of those letters got to the right people.Can you think of some things that could have happened to those letters?

Have you ever wondered how letters and postcards get to your mailbox, today?

Did you know that many of the envelopes you get in your mailbox spend time in the sky?

Do you think the post office still ties mail to balloons?

Actually, the post office does use air mail to carry letters long distances quickly, but they do not use balloons. Air mail started almost 100 years ago.

. Airplanes then were not like airplanes today. Airplanes 100 years ago were much slower and could not hold as much stuff. In fact, early air mail airplanes were biplanes or airplanes with two wings on each side.

Now, the post office uses really fast airplanes called jets to carry our mail.

If you send a letter to someone far away, its journey is something like this: First, you put a letter in the mailbox.

Then, a mail carrier in a mail truck picks it up from your mailbox. That mail truck takes it to the post office.

The post office sorts the letters and puts all letters going to the same faraway place in the same pile.

Then those letters are put on an airplane and up, up and AWAY they go!

Next time you put a letter in the mailbox, look into the sky at the clouds and imagine that your letter might soon be there, too!