Our Weekend with Flat Stanley

How many elementary school teachers have heard of Flat Stanley? Yay! If you haven't, that's ok. Thanks to wikipedia (my official source for all knowledge/information), we can learn about him:

"Stanley Lambchop and his younger brother Arthur are given a big bulletin board by their Dad for displaying pictures and posters. He hangs it on the wall over Stanley's bed. During the night the board falls from the wall, flattening Stanley in his sleep. He survives and makes the best of his altered state, and soon he is entering locked rooms by sliding under the door, and playing with his younger brother by being used as a kite. One special advantage is that Flat Stanley can now visit his friends by being mailed in an envelope. Stanley even helps catch some art museum thieves by posing as a painting on the wall. Eventually Arthur changes Stanley back to his proper shape with a bicycle pump.


The Flat Stanley Project was started in 1995 by Dale Hubert, a third grade schoolteacher in London, Ontario, Canada. It is meant to facilitate letter-writing by schoolchildren to each other as they document where Flat Stanley has gone with them. Dale Hubert received the Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence in 2001 for the Flat Stanley Project. The Project provides an opportunity for students to make connections with students of other member schools who've signed up with the project. Students begin by reading the book and becoming acquainted with the story. Then they make paper "Flat Stanleys" (or pictures of the Stanley Lambchop character) and keep a journal for a few days, documenting the places and activities in which Flat Stanley is involved. The Flat Stanley and the journal are mailed to other people who are asked to treat the figure as a visiting guest and add to his journal, then return them both after a period of time. The project has many similarities to the Travelling gnome prank except, of course, for the Flat Stanley Project's focus on literacy."


So there it is! The fabulous and fun Miss Riley is doing Flat Stanley, and I was only too happy to participate!

We decided to take Flat Stanley out with us on a Friday night date to Wendy's.

Stanley saw a car get pulled over! Unfortunately, we were late and missed the car that actually got pulled over. We just managed to get the cruiser before it pulled away too!

So....delicious...

On Saturday, we took Stanley to a place we just knew he'd love:

Guess what else is cool? On the Idaho Falls Public Library website, I found out that: "The children's classic, 'Where the Red Fern Grows,' was written during the period when the author, W. Wilson Rawls, lived here in Idaho Falls, Idaho from 1958 to 1975. To commemorate this event, a statue has been placed on the lawn of the Library. Our thanks go to the generous support of people from all over the United States who helped this dream to come true. The life-sized statue depicts Billy Coleman and his two hounds and was created by Marilyn Hansen, a local Idaho Falls artist."

Lucky Stanley! So we got some pictures of him with the statue.

That was a super cool bench. It was sea themed.

And then guess what book we found...? 

We had fun reading together.

Thanks, Blake, for letting us join you on your Flat Stanley adventure! He'll get put back in the mail on Monday to end his journey in Idaho Falls. We had fun!