Flat Stanley Project: school to school collaboration
About the project
Flat Stanley is a popular from the book series Flat Stanley. Stanley wakes up one morning to find out his bulletin board in his bedroom fell on him and flattened him while sleeping. Being flat has a few advantages: he can fit in small places to get lost items, hold on to string and fly like a kite, pose as a picture in a musuem to help the local police catch a criminal, and even visit friends in other states by folding himself up into an envelope and having his parents mail him (after all, postage stamps are much cheaper than plane tickets).
Via another teacher's blog from another state, I found they were looking for another class to participate in the flat Stanley Project with them. Our class was chosen! My kindergarten students were so excited when Flat Stanley visited us. We wrote letters, took pictures, and sent postcards to the girl Samantha who sent us Flat Stanley. We told her all about the adventures Flat Stanley had with each of us in our classoom... and told her all the cool facts about the state of Oklahoma were we live. We in turn checked out books from the library about the state of Arizona to find out about the state Stanley and Samantha was from. We were sad to see Stanley go, but was so happy to get to meet him.
Skills practiced:
Letter writing
Neat hand writing practice
Learning our home addresses
State research skills
Listening skills
Visualization of chapterbook read aloud
Geography - locating states
Social Studies - learning about the postal service
Via another teacher's blog from another state, I found they were looking for another class to participate in the flat Stanley Project with them. Our class was chosen! My kindergarten students were so excited when Flat Stanley visited us. We wrote letters, took pictures, and sent postcards to the girl Samantha who sent us Flat Stanley. We told her all about the adventures Flat Stanley had with each of us in our classoom... and told her all the cool facts about the state of Oklahoma were we live. We in turn checked out books from the library about the state of Arizona to find out about the state Stanley and Samantha was from. We were sad to see Stanley go, but was so happy to get to meet him.
Skills practiced:
Letter writing
Neat hand writing practice
Learning our home addresses
State research skills
Listening skills
Visualization of chapterbook read aloud
Geography - locating states
Social Studies - learning about the postal service
Program Goals
Goal #3: Graduates of this program should be able to assume responsibility for the development, implementation, evaluation, and revision of curricula or programs of study in particular disciplines and/or for particular populations.
Goal #6: Graduates of this program should be able to demonstrate professional leadership skills and continued professional growth in curriculum and instruction.
Goal #6: Graduates of this program should be able to demonstrate professional leadership skills and continued professional growth in curriculum and instruction.
Reflection
This project helped teach the children that we are able to collaborate with other schools and students. The students really enjoyed the chapter book (the first we read as a class) and were surprised when Flat Stanley came to visit us all the way from Arizona! This activity helped to make our social studies unit come alive as we studied both our state Oklahoma and the state of Arizona. It was exciting to have Stanley spend a couple weeks with us and we all wrote letters to Stanley’s friend sharing with her a little about us. If we had more time in the year, I would have loved to set up pen pals for us to send our own Flat Stanley’s to other states.