Simple project packs a lot of learning

Flat Stanley helps children explore new places, By Gretchen van Nuys Wantage — With the help of a little flat fellow named Stanley, who was cut out of a piece of paper, a group of pupils at the Clifton E. Lawrence School not only learned more about their country and their world, but were also brought closer to family and friends in distant places. Teacher Gina Benson said she decided to have her first-grade enrichment program children do the Flat Stanley project because it was a good fit with the topic the group was working on. “We wanted to talk about the U.S., and we thought it would be a fun way to learn about the different states,” said Benson. She lives in Vernon and her own daughters had enjoyed the Flat Stanley project when they were in elementary school. The Flat Stanley project took place during the last school year, but the group didn’t hear back from the most famous recipient of their Flat Stanley — President Barack Obama — until January of this year. The pupils are now in second grade and are all either 7 or 8 years old. Flying around the world in an envelope The project derives from the Flat Stanley series of books by Jeff Brown, which feature a completely flat boy named Stanley Lambchop, who travels by being mailed to his friends. The project was developed in 1995 by Dale Hubert, an elementary school teacher in Ontario, Canada, who had his students each cut out their own Flat Stanley and send him and his accompanying journal off to schools in other parts of the country or anywhere in the world. They asked that their Stanley be returned with postcards, souvenirs and photos of his visit, along with journal entries from his hosts. Hubert then invited other teachers to take part by hosting flat visitors and to encourage their students to write their own Flat Stanley journals. Fifteen years later, “I think there are millions of people around the world who now know about Flat Stanley thanks to my Flat Stanley Project,” Hubert said via e-mail. Closer to home and far away Benson and her class read several Flat Stanley books. Their favorite was “Stanley and the Magic Lamp.” Then they created their own classroom Flat Stanley and started sending him to friends and relatives in other states. Their goal was to see how many states he could visit. After hitting a couple of bumps in the road, with Stanley taking too long to get back to school, they created several more Stanleys and started sending them out simultaneously. By the end of June 2009, the group’s Stanleys had travelled to all regions of the country and to Hong Kong. (It took a year for President Obama to respond and he didn’t return the Stanley he was sent, but the class was delighted to receive his letter, along with a photo of Bo Obama, “First Dog.”) The group sent Flat Stanley to visit friends and family members living in places most of them had never seen. Stanley went to visit Owen Ison’s grandmother in Vermont and returned with a snow suit and enough maple candy for the whole class. Stanley visited Sam Lorentzen’s uncle in Indiana, where he went to a car race, and he also visited Grace Musilli’s friend in Arizona. “It was really cool, because she sent him back with pictures of where she lived; I had never been there,” said Grace. When Caroline Reese went to Florida to visit her aunt and uncle, Stanley was already there waiting for her, and joined them for a meal at a diner. Stanley even got to travel to Hong Kong, and had his photo taken so it looked like he was climbing the skyscraper Kara Zinner’s father was working on. Stanley visited Kevin Labar’s grandmother in Alaska, and returned with many photographs. Stanley also travelled to New Hampshire, California, Pennsylvania, Ohio, South Carolina, West Virginia, Texas, New Mexico and Utah. A winning project The Flat Stanley project got rave reviews from all involved. Michael Sturtevant, whose Stanley travelled to Oregon, said his favorite part of the project was making the Flat Stanleys. The project helped her students make connections between where they live and other parts of the country, Benson said. “We learned that there are different types of environments just in the United States.” Lawrence School Principal Barbara Cimorelli said that, with all of the stress and uncertainty currently going on with budget cuts, “It’s nice to see something positive and focused on the children, because that is why we’re here.”

Check out the Flat Stanley Web Site
More than 30,000 school classes have registered as participants on Hubert’s Web site, and many other classes and homeschoolers have done the project without registering, he said.
A visit to the participants’ photo gallery on the project’s official site, flatstanley.com, shows that, over the past 15 years, Flat Stanley has travelled the world and has had his photo taken with a who’s who list of celebrities and politicians, from Jon Stewart and Clint Eastwood to President George W. Bush and Sarah Palin. He has been on primetime TV shows and has been at the Olympics.