A trip to the school library prior to beginning the activity is ideal. Scheduled access times for Internet research for the students is also a good idea. Clip art or pictures for the students to use as models will be necessary. Ensure that CD-ROMS, encyclopedias and other resources will contain the facts that students are required to include on their animal postcards. Brainstorm ahead of time the facts to be collected.
Students love to have a bit of choice in their activities.
It lends creativity to their learning as well. Students can follow up their postcard reports by designing a larger than life postage stamp. This makes an excellent bulletin board when a world map is lightly outlined in the background and the postcards and stamps are placed accordingly. This is a fun way in which to teach the often difficult concepts of mean, median and mode. Students can even create a database on the classroom wall including all this data.