With the 6 week summer school holidays fast approaching, the time is perfect for getting your kids interested in stamp collecting!
Whilst this may seem a bit of a challenge when compared to the allure of computer games, Xboxes etc, it’s not as fanciful an idea as you may think. Basically, kids love collecting things. For example, let them loose on a beach and they’ll start collecting shells and how many of your kids bought a sticker book for the World Cup? I would wager quite a few!
Stamp collecting is very similar. Once they get started, there’s a good chance they’ll get hooked and if you’re trying to entice them away from the computers screen, then stamp collecting is a hobby that they will get a lot of enjoyment from.
So how can you get them started?
Well, building stamp collections based on specific themes is a good place to start and the Royal Mail has a great range of collections that they can begin with. At the moment the Royal Mail have stamp sets on Buckingham Palace, Children’s TV, Dinosaurs, Classic Cars, Butterflies, Farm Animals to name just a few.
If you do a bit of research about things they are interested in then you might be able to locate stamps that cover that subject. Notice we said you. We said you because stamp collecting is a hobby that you can enjoy together. You can encourage them to get started by doing the research with them and once their interest is grabbed you might just find that you will take a passing interest as well!
A shared hobby?
People have been collecting stamps since 1840 so that says something about its ability to retain interest. Once your kids have started a stamp collection then there are plenty of stamp collecting
books that you can buy about the subject and a wide variety of stamp albums to keep them in.
The more research they do, the more they will find out about stamps across the world and this could widen their interest even further.
So, if you hear your kids saying their bored this summer and they’ve got nothing to do, introduce them to the world of stamp collecting. You might just have a hobby that you could share together!