# Bag of Wonder: The Mail Carrier > Follow Barbara, the mail carrier, from the post office to your door: a birthday card across the ocean, a parcel, a doorbell. Then spread the mail out on the table! A free interactive 3D exhibit for children aged 2 to 6, from Curiosity's Child in Troy, Michigan. - Interactive exhibit: https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/mail-carrier/ - Ages: 2 to 6. The story is pitched at the youngest; the tap cards give older children more to chew on. - Cost: free, with no sign-in, no ads and no tracking. - Works on: phones, tablets and computers, in a web browser. Sound on for the narration. ## What it is Follow Barbara, the mail carrier, from the post office to your door: a birthday card across the ocean, a parcel and a doorbell. Then pull it apart! Free, narrated, ages 2 to 6. How to play: press play to hear the story (read aloud in Kelly's voice, with the words on screen). Slide the time slider back and forth to see any part again. Slide "Pull apart" to see what is hidden inside. Tap any glowing button for a fact. ## The story 1. Good morning, poppets! Here comes Barbara, the mail carrier, walking down my street with a big bag of letters. I have a letter to send today! 2. Very early, at the post office, the letters are sorted. Every letter has an address on it: a name, a house number, a street, a town. That is how a letter finds its way. 3. Barbara loads the mail truck. It has the steering wheel on the right side, so Barbara can reach the mailboxes without getting out! 4. Here is my mailbox, with its red flag up. Flag up means "there is a letter inside to send." It's a birthday card for Poppy! Barbara takes it, and puts the flag down. 5. Poppy lives across the ocean, in England. Mail goes across the ocean too! My card rides in the truck, then on a plane over the sea. In England the mail is called the post, and the postman pushes it through the letterbox, a little slot in the front door. Look, there's Poppy at the window! 6. Next door has a slot in the front door. Push the letters through: plop! Then on down the street, mailbox by mailbox: little door open, mail in, little door shut. 7. A package for me! Too big for the box. It's from Farmer June's farm: cornbread! Barbara carries it to my door and rings the bell. Ding dong! Thank you, Barbara! 8. Now you try, poppets: put your arm up like the red flag on a mailbox! Up when there is a letter, down when it is gone. Up! Down! Up! 9. Look, poppets: the mail on one table! The mail truck, the big bag, Poppy's birthday card with its stamp, my mailbox with the red flag, and the package from June's farm. ## The parts, and what we tell children These are the tap cards, word for word. - **Letter**: A letter is a message in an envelope. The address on the front says exactly where it is going, and the stamp pays for the trip. - **Stamp**: A stamp is a little sticker that pays for the letter's journey. Lick it or press it on, in the top corner. - **Address**: The address is the house number, the street, the town and the ZIP code. The post office reads the ZIP code first. - **Mail bag**: The mail carrier's bag hangs across the body and holds the letters for the whole street, in the order of the houses. - **Mail truck**: The mail truck is small and boxy, with the steering wheel on the right, so the mail carrier can reach the mailboxes from the seat. It stops and starts all day long. - **Mailbox**: A mailbox has a little door at the front and a red flag on the side. Flag up means "there is a letter in here to send." - **Blue mailbox**: The blue mailbox on the corner is for sending. Letters go in the slot, and the mail carrier empties it every day. - **Sorting**: At the post office, machines and people sort the letters by ZIP code, then by street, then by house, so every carrier's bag is in the right order. - **Barbara**: This is Barbara, the mail carrier. She has walked the same streets for thirty years, and she knows every house and every dog. She brings the mail in rain, snow or sun. - **Postman and letterbox**: In England the mail is called the post, the mail carrier is the postman or postwoman, and letters go through the letterbox, a slot in the front door with a little flap. - **Did you know?**: The first stamp in the world was the Penny Black, in Britain in 1840. Before stamps, the person who received a letter had to pay for it. ## Getting the science right What we checked, and the myths we steer around: - Barbara is a story character, painted for this exhibit (Barbara was Jackie's idea): a mail carrier of about sixty, thirty years on the same route. The only named people are Barbara, Ms Daisy, Poppy and Farmer June, all story characters; no real person or child is shown. Her shirt has no name tag (the small badge in the pictures was painted out) and there is no postal logo or lettering anywhere, on purpose. - A US mailbox flag raised means outgoing mail is waiting; the carrier takes the letter out and lowers the flag. The flag is hinged near the door end of the box and folds back to lie along the side, toward the back, as the page's does (the painted flags were taken out and one flag is drawn in code). On the day the carrier collects Ms Daisy's card, Barbara's hand takes it OUT of the box, the little door shuts and the flag goes down; later, delivering, mail goes in. (The mailbox slot on a house door is common in older US houses; the page shows a front door with a brass slot, close up.) - The mail truck is a small boxy white van with one red and one blue stripe and no lettering. Many US mail carriers drive right-hand-drive vehicles so they can reach curbside mailboxes from the seat; the card says exactly that. The truck is shown from its left side, facing left, as it would be seen across the street driving past houses on its right: Americans drive on the right, so its kerbside (right) side, with the steering wheel, is the side away from us; the open sliding door we see is the left-hand one (such vans have a sliding door on each side) and Barbara loads through it. The painted truck is a general picture, not any particular post service's vehicle. - The sorting room is a painting of a generic sorting hall: trays of letters, pigeonholes and a sorting machine. The card keeps it simple and true: letters are sorted by ZIP code, then by carrier route, then by the order of the houses (machines read the address barcode first; people sort what machines cannot). The ZIP code (five digits in the US) is read first. - The address on the page's envelope is drawn as plain lines, with no readable words: a name, a house number, a street, a town. The card also names the ZIP code, which the post office reads first. - Mail between countries travels by truck to an airport, by plane over the sea, and by truck again; the page shows a small propeller plane crossing a painted sea, a simplified picture of a real route. Poppy lives in England, so the card goes abroad. - In England the mail is called "the post", the mail carrier is the postman or postwoman, and letters go through the letterbox, a slot with a flap in the front door. The picture shows a postman in a red shirt with a small red van (plain red, no crown and no lettering) at a red-brick terraced house; real British post vans and postboxes are red, but the picture carries no real marks. The brass knocker on the door is painted out. - The blue collection box ("blue mailbox") on a US corner is for sending; carriers and collectors empty it on a schedule. The page has a tap card for it (reached from a button beside the mailbox on the table) but no painted blue box. - The Penny Black was the world's first adhesive postage stamp, issued in Britain in 1840 (on sale 1 May, valid from 6 May). Before stamps, postage was usually paid by the person who received the letter, by distance and number of sheets; the card says the receiver "had to pay for it", true of most mail. The picture shows a stamp in the Penny Black's style (a profile portrait in a decorated frame), a sealed letter and a quill. - The parcel is a brown box tied with string with a painted ear of corn on its label (cornbread from Farmer June's farm, from the Farmer exhibit). The sunflower stamp and the birthday-cake stamp on the table cards are painted pictures, not real stamps. - How it is made: Barbara walks along the pavement as her whole painted walking clip (every frame, a short cross-fade at the seam), cut out and slid across the painted street by the page at the clip's own ground speed; the mailbox, the raised arm and the door slot are pictures of her chosen frame by frame by the story's clock; the truck and the plane are cut-outs slid across painted backdrops. All the pictures are painted with Grok Imagine from Kelly's own prompts. - Gentle wording: nothing goes wrong, nobody is hurried, no dogs and no bad weather. The first stages are for the youngest; the tap cards give older children more, and the "Did you know?" card is for the grown-ups. ## How to use it with children Watch the whole story with the sound on. At the mailbox, ask: "Why is the flag up?" On the ocean stage, ask where the card will go next. At "Now you try", put your arm up like the red flag, then down, then up. Then pull everything apart at the table: the letter turns over to show its stamp, and the mailbox flag drops and the door opens. Tap the Address button and say your own address out loud. Ask more than you tell, and let the child drive. Then step away from the screen: make a mailbox from a cardboard box with a paper flag on a stick, then take turns being the carrier: flag up, take the letter, flag down. Draw a card for a friend with a stamp in the top corner and "post" it. Sort a pile of envelopes by colour or size. Walk the room delivering a toy "parcel" and ring a bell when you arrive. A few minutes together is plenty. The exhibit is a doorway to the real thing, not a replacement for it. ## Credits and licenses The real scans, maps and photographs belong to their makers, under the licenses below. The words, story and code are Curiosity's Child's. - Barbara, the mail truck, the street, the post office, the ocean, Poppy's door and the table cards: painted with Grok Imagine from Kelly's own prompts, and cut out, slid and layered together in code - Barbara was Jackie's idea - The display table is a real scan from [Poly Haven](https://polyhaven.com) (CC0) - Real sounds from Freesound ([CC0](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/), thank you!): [birds on a quiet street](https://freesound.org/s/135074/) (mzui), [a van idling](https://freesound.org/s/842194/) (joeffl), [a small plane](https://freesound.org/s/820325/) (SoundsLikeYukon), [a truck door](https://freesound.org/s/361823/) (Jofae), [a metal mailbox door](https://freesound.org/s/667281/) (alegemaate), [a letter-slot flap](https://freesound.org/s/50736/) (RutgerMuller), [a doorbell](https://freesound.org/s/827464/) (jonahlpayne) - Music-box tune made for this page - Narrated by Kelly, in her own voice ## More on the Community Helpers shelf - [The Firefighter](https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/firefighter/index.md): Meet Aaron, a kind firefighter. Put on his gear, ride the fire truck, rescue a kitten and learn stop, drop and roll. - [The Police Officer](https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/police/index.md): Meet Officer Bruce, a kind police officer. See his police car, cross the road safely, help find a lost teddy and learn what to do if you are lost. - [The Ambulance](https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/ambulance/index.md): Meet Amber, a kind paramedic. See her ambulance, help Jake after a tumble in the park, listen to a heartbeat and learn when to call 9-1-1. - [The Garbage Truck](https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/garbage-truck/index.md): Meet Brayden and his big garbage truck: watch him tip a can into the scoop at the back, a blade squeeze the trash small, then recycling and compost. - [The Farmer](https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/farmer/index.md): Follow one little corn seed with Farmer June and her granddaughter Suhayla, from her hand in spring to a harvest meal, then take a little tractor apart. Thank you, farmer! ## About Bag of Wonder A free library of interactive 3D "look inside" science exhibits, made at Curiosity's Child, a licensed home daycare in Troy, Michigan. Secular and science-based; welcoming to all. - All exhibits and how we make them: https://bagofwonder.com/llms.txt - For grown-ups and AI assistants: https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/about/ - To cite: "The Mail Carrier", Bag of Wonder, Curiosity's Child (Troy, Michigan). https://bagofwonder.com/look-inside/mail-carrier/