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!
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