Flat Stanley Project and Facebook

If you have been in elementary education for very long you are probably familiar with the Flat Stanley Project. If not, let me fill you in. Flat Stanley is a popular children's book written by Jeff Brown. Stanley becomes flat when a bulletin board falls on him in the night. After going to the doctor, Stanley remains flat and gets to go on several very exciting adventures. One of his favorite adventures is being mailed in an envelope to California to his friend's house. After visiting California, Stanley travels back home in an envelope. Many, many teachers over the years have created their own paper Stanley's with their class and sent him through the mail around the world to friends, family members, or even pen-pal classes. Stanley's "hosts" are asked to take Stanley around their city or town, taking pictures and writing about Stanley's adventures. This is a fabulous way for students to "see" the world through Stanley's eyes. When I have completed this project in the past my students seems to lose interest and almost forget about Stanley while is gone for 2 -3 weeks. How could this be avoided?? Through social media and email of course! I created a Facebook page for our first grade project and sent instructions with Stanley for his "hosts" to post pictures of Stanley's adventures to our page or email them to me if they did not use Facebook. I was a little unsure of the amount of participation we would have during the project. I was however pleasantly surprised.... we had over 50 pictures, comments, and messages sent to us throughout a 10 day period. What a way for the students to stay engaged! In addition to viewing pictures of places Stanley was visiting, we were able to easily look the places up through Google Earth to have a small sense of the world around us. This is a VERY difficult concept for 6 and 7 year olds! However, through the tech integration, the students now have a much better grasp of our place in this world. If you are taking part in the Flat Stanley project in the future, I HIGHLY recommend putting together a Facebook page for your hosts to communicate with you. You won't regret it! :) Check out our page by clicking here.

Look at some of the cool places Stanley traveled...

Stanley in Game Creek, Alaska

Stanley getting ready to board a cruise in Florida. 

Stanley visiting the Freedom Tower in New York City. 

Stanley and all of his belongings. Each travel guide included a map, interesting facts about the state he was visiting, and a place for a letter to be written to us from Stanley's hosts.