Project Dates: October 2007 - May 2007

Target Grade Levels: Grades 1-3

Requirements for Participation: You must be connected to the MAGPI/Internet2 networks and have H.323 (IP) videoconferencing capabilities in order to participate in this project.

Description:

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 month, 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 in a journal. At the end of each month-long period, 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 6 places and - - and so will your students!

Resources

  

PARTNER ASSIGNMENTS FOR JOURNEY 6

 
 

Project Timeline

  • September- Mid-October: Complete “Prepare Your Classroom for the Project”
    • Register for the project by September 30, 2007
    • Email class “Flat Stanley” introductions and photo to Heather by October 5, 2007
    • Mail your class’s Flat Stanley and scrapbook to your partner school for Journey # 1 no later than October 5, 2007
  • Mid-October – Mid-November: Journey # 1
    • 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 20 to videoconference.
    • Complete your school’s scrapbook journal entry, post it to the blog and mail Stanley for Journey # 2 by November 15, 2007
    • Arrange videoconference with the partner school by November 20, 2007
  • Mid-November – Mid-December: Journey # 2
    • 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 December 20 to videoconference.
    • Complete your school’s scrapbook journal entry and mail Stanley for Journey # 3 by December 15, 2007
    • Videoconference with the partner school by December 20, 2007
  • Mid-January – Mid-February: Journey #3
    • 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 February 20 to videoconference.
    • Complete your school’s scrapbook journal entry and mail Stanley for Journey # 4 by February 15, 2008
    • Videoconference with the partner school by February 20, 2008
  • Mid-February – Mid-March: Journey #4
    • 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 20 to videoconference.
    • Complete your school’s scrapbook journal entry and mail Stanley for Journey # 5 by March 15, 2008
    • Videoconference with the partner school by March 20, 2008
  • Mid-March – Mid-April: Journey # 5
    • 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 20 to videoconference.
    • Complete your school’s scrapbook journal entry and mail Stanley for Journey # 6 by April 15, 2008
    • Videoconference with the partner school by April 20, 2008
  • Mid-April – Mid-May: Journey # 6
    • 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 20 to videoconference.
    • Complete your school’s scrapbook journal entry and mail Stanley back to his home school by May 15, 2008
    • Videoconference with the partner school by May 15, 2008
  • Mid-May – Mid-June: Stanley comes home! Read about his adventures with your class.

Prepare Your Classroom for the Project

Step One: 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!

Step Two: 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 - - he’ll be going a long journey!

Write 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! Snap a picture of your class with their Flat Stanley and email the paragraphs and picture to Heather to post on the blog. Paragraphs and pictures should be received no later than October 5, 2007.

Step Three: Create your class Flat Stanley Scrapbook Journal

Take 20 sheets of 8.5” x 11” cardstock and use a three hole punch to create a way to bind the book together. Use ribbon to loosely bind the book together. Make sure to use bows - - not knots. Other schools may need to add additional cardstock to your book. You may want to use a different kind/color of cardstock for the cover - - and don’t forget to decorate the cover! After your book is complete, design the first two pages of the scrapbook. These two pages should introduce your Stanley to his host school. Tell the host school a little bit about where their guest has come from - - the town, the school, and of course, tell them about Stanley! What does he like to eat? Is he allergic to anything? Be creative! Leave the rest of the book blank.

Step Four: Mail your Flat Stanley and his scrapbook journal to your assigned Partner school for Journey # 1.

The Journeys

You may want to divide your class into six smaller groups for this project since there will be six “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.

Step One: 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 before the 20 th of the next month 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. Shoot an email to Heather at hweisse@magpi.net to let her know the date/time your schools will be connecting. Don’t forget to visit the class’s page on the project blog to find out more about them, too. To find their page, go to http://digitalflatstanley.blogspot.com/ and click on the class/school name on the left-hand side of the screen.

Step Two: 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. Don’t forget to take pictures of all of Stanley’s adventures! This should take one to two weeks…

Step Three: Write a class journal entry about Stanley’s visit. Journal entries should be creative - - and should include snippets from all of Stanley’s adventures! Consider including some (or focusing on one if it corresponds to another unit you are teaching) of the following in the journal entry you write for each journey (ideas are from The Original Flat Stanley Project):

  • Weather- Current temperature as well as some seasonal ranges.
  • Location- Latitude and longitude and proximity to major cities.
  • Population- How many people in your city and in your school?
  • Special to Your Location- Describe favorite local activities, sports, hobbies and sites of interest and industries.
  • What do you like best about where you are? What would you change?  
  • Wish List- What's important to you? What could you do to make things in your school, your neighborhood or even the world better?
  • What causes or projects are you involved in? Could Flat Stanley contacts elsewhere in the world help you?
  • Books- What books are students reading in class? What television programs are they watching?
  • Seasonal Activities- Winter sure is different in Northern Ontario and Southern California! What are the differences? What do we have in common?
  • Freebies- Consider sending little inclusions with your replies. Local leaves, coins, stickers, post cards and photographs all add to the learning.

Step Four: Create your class’ pages in your guest Stanley’s scrapbook. Your job is to help your guest show his home school where he’s been! Be creative in your page layouts and don’t forget to print out, cut and paste a copy of your journal entry onto the page! Consider putting pictures of Stanley’s visit, a class photo, postcards, scrapbooking embellishments and more onto your scrapbook page(s). Be sure to include lots of information, but try to be conservative with space in the journal since tons of pages will add up in postage costs. (5-7 pages = good; 10-15 pages = not so good). If you notice that pages in a journal are running low, please add pages to the book.

Step Five: Send Stanley and his journal to the next school on his journey AND post your class journal entry on the blog by the 15 th of the month. We’ll email the mailing information to you by the first of the month. To post your class journal entry, simply:

  • Visit the Digital Flat Stanley blog
  • Click on the name of your partner school on the upper left hand corner
  • Click on “Add a Comment”
  • Cut and paste your text into the Comment Box (Be sure to sign your journal entry with your school’s name, town, state, and country)
  • That’s it! Wasn’t that easy?

Step Six: Videoconference! This is what your students have been waiting for – a chance to meet their peers at their guest’s home school! Before the videoconference, 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 some things you’ve been working. Then take turns asking questions. You should email the teacher at the partner school to come up with a “theme” for the videoconference - - this will help make each videoconference different and informative. For example, the first few minutes of a videoconference could be song sharing! Each school could write a brief song about Stanley’s adventure to their school. Take time to prepare an agenda with your colleague at the partner school.

A sample agenda for a “song sharing” videoconference might be:

  • 1 Minute: Welcome!
  • 5 Minutes: Introduction and Song from School # 1
  • 5 Minutes: Introduction and Song Report from School # 2
  • 5 Minutes: Critique of Songs by each school (what was funny about the other school’s song? What surprised you? What did you learn?
  • 10 Minutes: Question/Answer Session (Schools take turns asking questions)
  • 4 Minutes: Wrap-Up

Other possible themes might be book reports, geography, class mini-plays, weather reports, holiday traditions, favorite things to do, etc.

Don’t forget to make sure you arrange for your videoconference early in the month with your school’s technology/videoconferencing coordinator. Work with the technology/videoconferencing coordinator to do a videoconference test with your partner school at least one week before your scheduled connection. You’ll also want to connect at least 20 minutes prior to the scheduled videoconference to make sure all technical issues are worked out.

Congratulations! You’ve completed a journey! By the end of the project, your school will have visited 6 different places and have lots of stories to tell when he returns in May! Now you’re ready to repeat the cycle.

 

  
     
© MAGPI 2007