“Dear Tumacácori...”: a mail-in pen-pal learning kit from a national historical park

A letter that is not a bill, an advertisement or a purchase is a rare thing in the mail. Tumacácori National Historical Park built a distance learning program around that, for readers tired of screens. "Dear Tumacácori..." mixes two familiar models, subscription kits and pen pals. Students start a correspondence with the park the way viceroys and leaders in Europe once wrote to missionary priests on the frontier, and the park writes back.

How it works

Participants receive updates on how things are going at the park, what challenges and successes it has had and what feedback would help. Each kit includes enrichment activities and materials. A mailed response to the writing prompt triggers the next kit.

Six kits had been developed, covering content standards in language arts, social studies and science: writing, O'odham culture, art, music and architecture, wildlife and nature, food, and geography.

What is in each kit

• A letter from Tumacácori. It introduces the kit's subject in a colonial-era style, with signature lines in the spirit of "Ever yours in obedience and gratitude, your humble servants at Tumacácori." The challenging style builds reading skills such as context clues, vocabulary and inference. It comes in three reading levels: upper elementary, middle school and high school.
• A writing prompt. Depending on the topic, it may be a lesson in persuasive writing, instructional writing or a personal essay, and teachers and homeschooling parents can use it as an assessment. The response must be mailed back to receive the next kit.
• A personalized response. Each response is acknowledged and discussed in a personalized letter on parchment sealed with wax, included in the next package.
• A hands-on activity. Each package has supporting material for an activity, game or craft, which can vary by grade level.
• A collectable sticker. Each kit explores a different theme, and the stickers fill the six spaces on a "Dear Tumacácori..." poster included in the first kit.

Signing up

The park took requests by mail, as pen, paper and postage stamps were "the original distance learning platform." A request named a parent or teacher, a mailing address, a student's first name and a grade band (3rd to 5th, 6th to 8th or 9th to 12th grade), and could include a question about the place. The park said the first packet should arrive within a week. For current details, contact the park's distance learning staff.

Sources

• National Park Service, Tumacácori National Historical Park, "Dear Tumacácori..."; rewritten in hubnx's own words.