Flat Stanley has been a friend to many homeschoolers on this site! LOL The only difference is the people made their own character and named him something else.
You can start a thread here at The Spot, asking who wants to participate. You will make your Stanley and mail him out with a notebook. Be sure to make it clear that if people are going to participate that they make sure they send him to his next destination in a timely fashion. You can even give a set date that he needs to be on his way. Have fun!
We've hosted a few the last few years and DS7 did one in his co-op class last year. We didn't send it lots of places (due to the limited time to get them out and back) but we did send it to DH in Afghanistan....DS has the coolest pics of Daddy and Stanley all over Bagram AFB, Afghanistan.
Oh yeah, and he just beamed sharing it with his class. I had printed out the pictures in 5x7 and put them in sheet protectors so they could all look at them in or out of the 3 ring binder....and now he has a great keepsake in his room on his bookshelf to look thru when he wants too.
I was impressed that DH does such a great job...not that he isn't a great dad but he's busy over there and it's a bit stressful but he did most of the photos in a day or two and his whole office got into it. We even have one of the soldiers/airmen saying "goodbye" to Stanley (with one guy pretending to wipe a tear away...lol). DS7 loves that!! He got some with Army vehicles, in the dining facility eating ice cream, etc.
We did it for my sister 2 years in a row - we were the recipients! We took the stanley figure and went around our small town and took pictures, filled out the notebook, and mailed it all back. It was fun for my kids too - they learned all about our hometown!
I would be interested in participating in Flat Stanley if it gets going here. My kids would love it!!
We did Flat Stanley once by accident. It had really been sent to our neighbor by some school kids from Ohio or someplace, but she thought it would be nice for us to participate as well since we have kids and she does not. It was fun.
Deena sent a stuffed dog name Chinook around a good number of years ago. About six...? Gosh, have I been around her THAT long?!?!
Hey there GymMom... We did a journal last year - it's still out right now. We got it back near end of school year for our evaluator...but I sent it back out again. IF you'd like to see it, I could make you next destination and the kids can see it and you guys could add your entry!
We did it last year through a website too. My daughter exchanged Stanleys with a girl from Wales. They sent her a flag, information on their country, and the cutest homemade newspaper all about our Stanley's visit. We have started a Stanley notebook and plan on sending more out this year. It was so much fun.
help i understand sending the stanley and making pics of stanley, but what is involved in the notebook? thanks to anyone who knows the answer!
I just received your pm and will pm you back. The notebook is for the hosting family to write, usually one page or a couple of paragraghs, what Stanley did or visited. Stanley is a geography project. If he came to visit my family I would take him to a place of importance in So Cal; take pictures of Stanley at the theatre, museum, and such. I would write down where we went and give a little detail about it. Then he would ship off to another area, state, or country. When he returns your kiddo has all these pictures from different states, information about special places, and many places to look up and mark on a map. It is a wonderful geography lesson and fun too.
I forgot to add, you can have people send postcards home with Stanley or flags as mentioned. But the more stuff each person has to ship, the higher the shipping cost per person. So it is better to stick with pictures and small momentos. Now Becky did it differently. She made a bunch of crabs and sent them to individual familes. They sent them back instead of shipping them to another place. This way she received all the crabs back more or less at the same time. If Stanley is shipped around the states or world, one host after another, it can take many, many months for him to return home from his trip. LOL
