More Flat Stanley Pics

Here are a couple more of my Flat Stanley pictures that I wanted to share with you!

This is the display that I have in the hallway.  I have added to it as they have come in.  I have a large map and then put up each Flat First Grader with a souvenir.  A couple of my Flat First Graders even brought back Flat Friends of their own!  :)   

This little boy's aunt did an amazing job!  She sent back a large scrapbook FULL of goodies for him from New York City!  We had so much going through all of this.  

Here he is with Flat Teddy Roosevelt at the Grand Canyon!  

This little boy received an entire box of goodies.  The class' favorite was the rattlesnake poop in the small tube on the table.  It was really chocolate covered peanuts, but some of them really thought it was poop!  :)

A lot of my Flat First Graders bring back fabulous pictures of their adventures, but one of the coolest pictures this year was of a boat that was painted with the little girl's name- S.S. Flat C******.  

I guess the boat washed up during a storm and now it's tradition to paint the boat so they painted it in honor of her Flat First Grader.  How cool is that?!?!  :)

If you want to do Flat Stanley activities with your kiddos you can check out my Flat Stanley Pack at my TpT store!  

I hope your end of the year is going well!  Mine is crazy busy!!  

We only have 6 days left!!  This year has gone by sooo fast!  :)

Flat Stanley, Blog Award, and Advice Needed!

It gets harder and harder for me to post on here as we get closer and closer to the end of the year!  Phew!!  

My to-do list is becoming a never-gonna-end list!  :)

If you have followed my blog for awhile you will have heard me talk about Flat Stanley before!  For the last couple of years we have read about Flat Stanley and then enjoyed mailing our Flat First Grade Friends across the country.  

I (meaning my wonderful aide) have recently hung up our Flat Stanley map in the hallway outside our classroom tracking where our Flat First Graders have traveled this year.  My kiddos LOVE hearing about all the adventures our friends go on.  

I really wanted to take more pics today, but my camera battery died.  And then the back-up battery died so I will post more pics later.  

This Flat First Grader traveled to visit her grandparents in Florida.  She brought back a binder full of goodies!  She also brought back a magnet with an alligator on it and a bag of sand!  I was hoping she would send back the entire beach! :)  You can see my cute little flat first grader in the first picture in the upper left corner. 

This Flat First Grader traveled to another first grade class in Virginia.  They have been learning about Flat Stanley this year too and having their own adventures!  They take Flat Stanley home each weekend and record their adventures in their journals.  They even have a Flat Stanley wall!!  This Flat First Grader brought back pencils for our entire class and my kiddos were so excited to get a gift!  

You can have your own Flat Stanley and Flat First Grader adventures next year too!  I have everything you need in my Flat Stanley Pack which you can find in my TpT store.  

I also need to share how excited I am that I was chosen as one of the Top 25 Elementary School Teacher Blogs of 2012!  I know I'm so late with this news, but it's totally worth sharing!!  I have no idea how I got nominated, but I appreciate the recognition.  

And since all 25 blogs are listed in alphabetical order I'm #2!  Woohoo!  :)  

I know...I'm a dork....but, hey- it's the little things, right?!?!  

Now, I need some advice....

We are officially moved into our new house so now the remodeling begins.  We are going to be getting our kitchen done soon.  I have always wanted granite counter tops, but now I'm not so sure.  I didn't realize they had to be sealed every year.  I'm more into the no maintenance counter tops!  

If you have granite counter tops (and you have read this far) can you let me know what your opinion of them is?  I would love to hear!  I've heard quartz is much less maintenance so now I'm kind of leaning that way.  

If you have any expertise in this area, please share!!  :)

Whatever we choose, we need to choose soon!  

Have a great week!  I hope you're all sailing smoothly through these last few weeks!  :)

Will you host a Flat First Grader??

We have been reading about Flat Stanley in our classroom.  We have already read the first book and now we are on to the chapter books.  My kiddos are loving them!  

I started using Flat Stanley in my classroom last year and it was such a hit that I had to do it again.  It's a great activity to help get us through these long winter months....especially since there is no snow in sight which means no snow days anytime soon!  :)

I created a Flat Stanley Pack last year that we are using again.  It has reading and writing activities along with a Flat Stanley project and a Flat First Grader project.  You can visit my post about it from last year here. 

This is how it works: 

I have 2 copies of a Flat Stanley.  Each weekend 2 kiddos get to take him home and spend the weekend with him.  They take home a parent letter explaining everything and a journal page that they fill out.  They write about what fun things they do together and then either attach real pictures or draw pictures of their weekend together.  

I've told my kiddos that Flat Stanley is kinda like our class pet.  He hangs out with us all week and then goes home with someone on the weekends so he doesn't get lonely.  They love this!  

We have also made Flat First Graders.  Each kiddo has a flat version of themselves which we mail to friends and family across the country.  This is where I need your help!! 

I have a few kiddos who don't have anyone to send their Flat First Grader to and they're so sad....  :(  Would you and your class be willing to host a Flat First Grader for a few days????

It's really easy.  Take a few pictures of your adventure and fill out the journal page so we can learn a little about where you live.  We have several going to other states so we can learn about places outside of Ohio.  We'd love to learn about more states or even other countries!! 

If you're interested, please leave me a comment or send me an email at rms273@gmail.com and let me know!  

All of my Flat First Graders have found a place to visit!  Thank you so much for volunteering!!  :)

Thank you for making a first grader very happy!!  :)

Flat Stanley Unit and My Blog has been NOMINATED!!

First of all, THANK YOU so much to those of you who visited my blog yesterday during our Teacher Appreciation Jackpot!  I gained quite a few followers and had thousands of my May Activity Pack downloaded!  That is so exciting!  My May Activity Pack is marked down from $4.00 to $3.00 if you missed out and would like to purchase it!  You can also get 28% off with the code TAD12 until Tuesday, May 8.  

I want to share my new Flat Stanley unit!  I did 2 different Flat Stanley projects this year with my first graders and they LOVED it!  

There are so many different things you can do, but I chose these 2 activities because I thought my kiddos would really enjoy them...and they did!  

Check out my unit here:

We read the first Flat Stanley book back in September.  After we read it, we decided to create 'Flat First Graders' and mail them to friends and family around the country.  I sent home a letter to my parents explaining what we were going to do.  Then, my kiddos colored and cut out a flat version of themselves.  We wrote "Flat ______" on the back of each one.  

We mailed them out and it only took a couple of weeks before they started coming back.  My kiddos would ask every day if we had another flat friend come back home yet.  

We would read about their adventure, where they went, and what they did.  It was great!  Some of them brought back some REALLY cool souvenirs!  

Then, after we got our Flat Friends all sent out on an adventure, I created a Flat Stanley and the kiddos took turns taking him home over a weekend.  They would have their own adventure with Stanley and write on a journal page and then share it with us when he came back.  Stanley was like our classroom pet!  He hung out with us during the week and then went home with a first grader on the weekends.  

EVERYTHING you need to do these activities with is included in my Flat Stanley Unit!  I have several parent letters, thank you letters, explanation pages, 2 charts to help you stay organized, journal pages, a flat boy, girl, and Stanley template, poster for hallway, bulletin board paper for your kiddos to fill out and hang up, reading organizers, several writing prompts with a couple of activities, and a word search!  My kiddos LOVE word searches so I always have to include one!  

All you need are the stamps and envelopes.  I mailed everything from school.  To me, that was easier.  I sent all the flat friends out in 1 big envelope addressed to their friend with a slightly smaller one inside addressed back to the school.  Make sure you put an entire package together and have it weighed at the Post Office before asking for stamps.  I totally forgot to do that sorta didn't do that and then had to purchase quite a few extra stamps myself.  

All in all it was a big success!  It was a lot of work this year, but now that I've created this unit I will be ready to go in September!  

I know this is a LONG post, but I haven't written in a few days so I'm making up for it tonight!  :)  

Before I go, I have to tell you that I've been NOMINATED FOR MOST FASCINATION BLOG OF 2012 under the category Elementary Teacher!!  I don't even know how that happened?!?!  :)

I received an email today telling me that my "Chapter Book, April Activity Pack, and a Freebie" post had been nominated!  See my great nomination badge on the right.  I had to display it, right!?!?  :) 

Okay, I'm headed off to do some work!  I told my kiddos today that I had about 3 trillion things to do.  They looked at me puzzled....so I just said don't worry about it; you can't even count that high anyways!  :)