Once you read the book to your kiddos, the students create their own "Flat Stanley" character. Once those are created, you log on to the "Flat Stanley Project" website and locate another class anywhere in the world that is participating in the project as well. You then get in touch with one of those classes and you mail you "Flat Stanley" characters to them, and they mail theirs to you!! Once you receive them, you take pictures of their character at your school and in all kinds of locations around your hometown, and send those pictures back to your "pen pal." It is a great global awareness activity, and helps kids interact with students from all over the world!! Check it out here:
My class will be participating in this project with a group of students from Paris, France!! How cool is that???? I told my class, and so many of the girls were like "OH MY GOSH!! PARIS, FRANCE!!!!" (enter French music). I am so excited about this opportunity! We should be receiving their Stanleys soon, and we will ship ours soon, too!! We also have been in contact with a group from South Korea, but we haven't received their mailing address yet! We learned how to say hello and yes in Korean today!! That was a funny experience!! I will put photos on here of my classes Stanleys as they finish! We have cheerleader Stanley, superhero Stanley, skateboarding Stanley, and more!!!
Alright....soap box time!!! This activity really got me thinking about how we teach! I was trying to think of ways to tie in France and South Korea into my lessons each day to help my students get more of a cultural experience from this project than just receiving the Stanleys. What better way to do that than units??? Right now it seems our teaching is so chopped up and non-relateable! We wonder why so many of our students get lost and confused with stuff, but it is because we teach something and then move on! There is not a real connection with what we are teaching!! I see all these fantastic teacher blogs with teachers who are doing these awesome units and incorporating their non-negotiable curriculum into that unit!! It seems like we are so pushed to teach from a pacing guide and to get through everything so that our kids can...."pass the end of grade test." Yes, our students are third graders and do take that test, but why can't they get the fun units and integrated curriculum like so many other grades do?? Do they not deserve to have fun at school? I do believe the common core is helping to move towards an easier curriculum to work with, but I still feel that push to "get through everything" before the end of the year.
End of soap box...
So, I think I am going to try to do a unit of study using the countries that we are partnering up with for the Flat Stanley Project. Today when I taught my kids the two simple phrases in Korean, they thought it was the coolest thing EVER! They were even saying it to the lunch line ladies, who were giving them funny looks! The Korean word for yes is "neh" which is very similar to "no." So when the lunch lady said "would you like rice?" and one of my students said "neh" she was confused! I found it humerous!! :) If I can get them that excited about learning two small words in another language, think of the excitement that is possible!! We will see how it goes!!
Happy Wednesday night, and Happy Thursday morning tomorrow!!
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