Flat Stanley

Flat Stanley is a wonderful book by Jeff Brown.  It is a story about Stanley Lambchop, a boy who becomes flat when a bulletin board crashes on him in the middle of the night.  The story tells of the many adventures he has while he's flat.  I've done this book in reading groups with 3rd graders and 5th graders, and both classes just loved it!  I did it with 3rd graders last year.  After reading the books and discussing it in reading groups, the kids created their own Flat Stanleys.  They then wrote letters to family and friends out of state asking them to take Stanley along with them on "adventures" and keep a diary of the experiences.  They had a blast with it!  One student's uncle was a professor at a university and took Stanley around campus with him.  He and Stanley visited landmarks at the university, visited a sorority, toured the Crayola and Peeps factories, and delivered candy and cards to children with cancer at a hospital.  He also took 8x11 color pictures of Stanley on each adventure and sent them with his diary entries.  The best part was that he sent crayons and Peeps for the kids in his niece's reading group.  It was really cool!


This year I did Flat Stanley again with my 5th graders.  They had just as much fun with it as the 3rd graders.  We didn't have time to send out Flat Stanleys like the 3rd graders did, but we did do a lot of discussions and a project over the book.  I made a packet for each student to work through as we were reading the book.  The packet included vocabulary words, comprehension questions, and discussion points.  As we read the book, we had round table discussions and worked through the packets.  After completing most of the questions and graphic organizers, the students put it all together to create a summary.  They also made plot diagrams for the story and colored a Flat Stanley.  They listed character traits for Stanley around their colored picture.  We put them onto some tri-fold cardboard pieces.  They also wrote a letter to me as if they were Flat Stanley, explaining how they became flat and how they felt now that they were flat.  The projects turned out pretty neat :)

This was a fun way to still hit the important concepts, but it allowed the students to be a little creative!

A New Kind Of Computer : The Google Chromebook

When I see something new or hear about a new product that would make my life easier, I usually have to buy it.  And that's exactly what happened when my principal, Joel, mentioned this new fangled device called a chromebook.  I had mentioned that I was thinking about buying a netbook so I could work on Progress Book at home (since Adobe and my Mac don't really get along).  He simply said, "Don't get a netbook.  What you need is a chromebook."  I had never heard of such a thing.  When I asked him what it was, he told me to go home and research it.  I looked it up and fell in love.  A chromebook is an internet based computer that boots up in less than 8 seconds.  It has no hard drive and runs entirely off the internet.  Everything is saved online on the cloud.  It's Google based. (I love Google and am still convinced that it is slowly taking over the world.)  I didn't believe it.  It sounded too good to be true.  Naturally, I had to buy one.  I purchased the Samsung Google Chromebook-WiFi only.  I bought it online for the low price of $349.00. (no shipping costs either!)  It shipped in a few days, and I was ecstatic when it arrived.  Could it be everything it claimed to be?


I'll be honest, at first I was not impressed.  Progress Book wouldn't open, and that was one of the main reasons I made this purchase.  Joel, being the tech freak that he is, offered to babysit it for the weekend and try to figure it out.  It was the perfect deal for me.  I didn't get frustrated from trying to figure everything out and Joel got his tech fix.  After contacting a few amazing people through twitter (@RVCPrincipal & @ericcurts & @jrsowash), Progress was working!  It was a simple solution.  An ie browser tab had to be installed...I'll go into detail about that amazing little tool on another day.


After I spent more time playing around on the Chromebook, I am in love.  It is everything that it claims to be.  It really does boot up in less than 8 seconds.  Everything does save to the cloud.  It really does run completely off of wireless.  I'm able to access all of my saved materials through Google Docs anywhere, anytime.   Joel reminded me of another neat feature the Chromebook has.  There are individual accounts and guest sharing. Never fear to hand your Chromebook over to someone. None of "their stuff" ever gets mingled with "your stuff." They can't edit or even see your settings, bookmarks, etc. That's why it's good for students, too. Now, our schools just need to all get Chromebooks so we can flip the classrooms! Check out the Chromebooks for Education video below.  It's amazing what could be done with these little machines.  Oh, the world is changing, and I love that I am getting the opportunity to begin my teaching career during such a techno-savvy time.

Ahhh...They've learned SOMETHING!

I am all about grammar.  My friends and students probably get annoyed with me because I am constantly correcting grammar.  I always get excited when I see a student, or adult for that matter, use an apostrophe correctly.  Let's face it, I'm a grammar geek.  Yesterday I was walking down the hallway at the junior high and this sign caught my eye....

Someone had covered a student's locker with signs for her birthday.  Unfortunately, the sign maker didn't use the correct you're.  It's a very common...and annoying....error that many people make.  Luckily, someone saved the day and added the necessary 'e to the end of the word.  This made my day.  I'm just hoping it was another student who corrected it and not a teacher :)