What happens when a normal boy finds himself flattened by a bulletin board and is sent through the mail to places all across the country? Your students can find out during this fun project, based on the 1964 book written by Jeff Brown! Classes across the country will participate in this project and send their Flat Stanleys around the USA to visit different students. Every journey, one school’s Flat Stanley will visit another partner school. Students will take their new flat friend on different adventures near their school and record the adventures on a wiki page. At the end of each journey, partner schools will meet via videoconference for 30 minutes to greet one another, discuss their hometown and experiences with their flat friends. At the end of the project, Flat Stanley will have visited 4 places and - - and so will your students!

Program Outline:

Prepare Your Classroom for the Project (September – October)

• Register for the project by October 15, 2009
• Design your class wiki page!
• Mail your class’s Flat Stanley to your partner school for Journey # 1 no later than November 1, 2009.

Teacher Webinar (October 22, 2009 * 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. ET)
Join us for a quick webinar about the project, to go over deadlines and to get all your questions answered! We'll send you directions in early October

Journey # 1 - THEME: Weather (November 1, 2009 – December 15, 2009)

As soon as you receive your guest Flat Stanley, email the teacher at the partner school to let him/her know that Stanley arrived and to arrange a time before November 30th to videoconference.

Design a short presentation related to weather in your community. You might want to consult with your colleague at the partner school to design similar presentations.

Create a wiki page for this journey (link to it from your class page and your partner's class page!) and mail their Flat Stanley for Journey # 2 by December 15, 2009 (REMEMBER TO GET A CONFIRMATION AND TRACKING SLIP!)

Journey # 2 - THEME: Festivals and Traditions (December 15, 2009 – February 15, 2010)

As soon as you receive your guest Flat Stanley, email the teacher at the partner school to let him/her know that Stanley arrived and to arrange a time before January 30th to videoconference.

Design a short presentation related to festivals and traditions in your community. You might want to consult with your colleague at the partner school to design similar presentations.

Create a wiki page for this journey (link to it from your class page and your partner's class page!) and mail their Flat Stanley for Journey # 3 by February 15, 2010 (REMEMBER TO GET A CONFIRMATION AND TRACKING SLIP!)

Journey # 3 - THEME: It Happened Here! (February 15, 2010 – April 1, 2010)

As soon as you receive your guest Flat Stanley, email the teacher at the partner school to let him/her know that Stanley arrived and to arrange a time before March 15th to videoconference.

Design a short presentation related to something historical that happened in your community. You might want to consult with your colleague at the partner school to design similar presentations.

Create a wiki page for this journey (link to it from your class page and your partner's class page!) and mail their Flat Stanley for Journey # 4 by April 1, 2010 (REMEMBER TO GET A CONFIRMATION AND TRACKING SLIP!)

Journey # 4 - THEME: Neighborhoods (April 1, 2010 – May 15, 2010)

As soon as you receive your guest Flat Stanley, email the teacher at the partner school to let him/her know that Stanley arrived and to arrange a time before April 30th to videoconference.

Design a short presentation related to something historical that happened in your community. You might want to consult with your colleague at the partner school to design similar presentations.

Create a wiki page for this journey (link to it from your class page and your partner's class page!) and mail their Flat Stanley back to them by May 15, 2010 (REMEMBER TO GET A CONFIRMATION AND TRACKING SLIP!)

Mid-May: Stanley comes home!

Get Your Class Ready for the Project!

Excite your students and parents about the project
Borrow Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown from your school or community library and read the book to students. Explain to students that they will be creating a class Flat Stanley and sending him to different classes around the country to visit! They will be receiving Flat Stanleys from other schools and will be responsible for treating him like their guest and recording his visit. At the end of each visit, they will be videoconferencing with the school the sent Stanley. You may want to put up a bulletin board in your classroom to track Stanley’s travels and where your class has visited “virtually!” You’ll also want to send a note home to parents to let them know about the project - - and that a guest Stanley might be visiting their home for a night or a weekend!

Create your class Flat Stanley
Go to the Original Flat Stanley Project website and download their Flat Stanley template. You may want to paste your class’ Flat Stanley to cardstock before decorating and then laminate him- - he’ll be going a long journey! BE SURE TO INCLUDE THE NAME AND ADDRESS OF YOUR SCHOOL ON THE BACK OF FLAT STANLEY.

Design your class Wiki Page
Go to the Project Wiki Page (you’ll need your user name and password) to edit your class page. Don't forget to include the following on your wiki page: a class photo; photo of your Flat Stanley; the name, city and state of your school; and  a two paragraph description to introduce your Flat Stanley. The first paragraph should be about your class. The second should be about Stanley and where he came from- the town, the school, and of course, details about Stanley! What does he like to eat? Is he allergic to anything? Does he like to do anything fun? Be creative! Wiki pages MUST be completed by November 1, 2009.

Mail your Flat Stanley for his first Journey!
Check the wiki site for your first partner assignment. First Journey partner assignments will be posted approximately 10 days after registration closes.

About the Journeys

You may want to divide your class into four smaller groups for this project since there will be four “journeys.” Each group could be responsible for a particular guest Stanley and would be responsible for showing Stanley around, working together to write the journal entry, laying out the scrapbook pages for a single visit. By the end of the school year, each student will have had an opportunity to take Stanley home and to write about their adventures. This is just a suggestion - - if you have other ideas for how to divide work for each journey let us know! We'd love to share it with everyone.

Coordinate with your Partner Teacher. Once you receive your guest Flat Stanley, email the teacher at the partner school to let him/her know that Stanley arrived and to arrange a time to videoconference. We’ll send you the technical contact and IP address for each partner school - - make sure to give that information to your school technology/videoconferencing coordinator so that they can do a quick videoconference test with your partner school and make sure the technology is in order for your videoconference at the end of the journey. Don’t forget to visit the class’s page on the project wiki to find out more about them, too.

Treat Stanley like a guest! Make sure he goes on all class field trips, does science experiments, reads books, spends the night at a student’s house, etc. Make sure students who take Stanley home for a night or a weekend journal about what he did - - either on the partner class’s wiki page or in a class journal that you keep. Don’t forget to take pictures of all of Stanley’s adventures! This should take one to two weeks…

Create your presentation. Each journey, there is a different theme to discuss with your students and create a presentation about to share during your videoconference:

Journey 1: Weather: The weather in your city or town might be a lot different than the weather in your partner school's city or town! Put together a yearly weather report and share.

Journey 2: Festivals and Traditions: Each community, city, town and/or state has unique traditions and festivals! (We know of a small town in Pennsylvania where they drop a pickle on New Year's Eve!) What festivals and traditions does your community, town, city or state have?

Journey 3: It Happened Here! We know that your community has a rich history -- what historical events or stories took place in your town?

Journey 4: Neighborhoods Neighborhoods often reflect a lot about where we live. What does your neighborhood look like? How would you describe the culture and/or feel of your neighborhood? What are the buildings made out of? Why are houses constructed in the manner in which they are constructed? What makes your neighborhood different from others?

Now, make sure your theme reports are creative! Instead of simply standing up and talking about a favorite tradition, why not act it out? Or write a song? Or deliver a newscast?

Videoconference! This is what your students have been waiting for – a chance to meet their peers at their guest’s home school! Don’t forget to practice your theme reports before going ‘live.’ You might also want to come up with a list of questions to ask the other school. At the beginning of the videoconference, have a student from each school introduce your class and share your theme reports. Then take turns asking questions.

Update the wiki: Write a class journal entry about Stanley’s visit and create a wiki page for the journey  (link to it from your class page and your partner's class page!), Journal entries should be creative - - and should include snippets from all of Stanley’s adventures!

National Educational Standards:

Participation in this program satisfies the following content standards, as outlined by the National Council for the Social Studies:

• Understand how to apply geography to interpret the present and plan for the future
• Understand the history of the local community and how communities in North America varied long ago

Participation in this program satisfies the following content standards, as outlined by the International Society for Technology in Education:

• Students use telecommunications to collaborate, publish, and interact with peers, experts, and other audiences.
• Students use technology tools to enhance learning, increase productivity, and promote creativity.

Participation in this program satisfies the following English language arts standards, as outlined by the National Council for Teachers of English:

• Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.

• Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.