Inspired by the children’s book, "Flat Stanley" students at Peter Muschal Elementary School are making friends around the world using the psotal system.
By: Eve Collins
BORDENTOWN TOWNSHIP The first-graders at the Peter Muschal Elementary School are flat-out amazing.
Much like the popular chapter book character, Flat Stanley, the children can fit into an envelope and send themselves through the mail.
OK, so they’ve actually just made cloth replicas of themselves to send around the world, but they are learning about the destinations just the same.
In the popular children’s book, "Flat Stanley" by Jeff Brown, the main character Stanley is squashed by a falling bulletin board. Taking advantage of his svelte new form, Stanley slips into an envelope and mails himself to California to visit some friends.
Teachers across the country have used this story to help their students learn about geography and about keeping in touch with people far away, a learning activity known as the Flat Stanley Project.
Student-made Flat Stanley cutouts have traveled around the world, even on a NASA space shuttle, and been photographed at places such as the White House and the Eiffel Tower, according to the official Web site dedicated to tracking Flat Stanley sightings.
Tara Planas-Borgstrom, a first-grade teacher at Peter Muschal, read about the project in a teachers’ magazine and decided to try it with her class, but made some adjustments.
"The original project was to send it to one person," she said. "I just thought I would see if it could travel farther," she said.
And indeed it has.
The kids made the flat dolls in class and took them home to have their parents mail to a friend or relative. The project works much like a chain letter. Those who receive the dolls are told in a short letter to forward them on to another person and send a postcard representing their hometown to the school.
The dolls were sent out in October. Recipients who get the dolls on or after May 15 will send them back to the school so the children can take them home.
Ms. Planas-Borgstrom said the children now have a bulletin board full of postcards to show for their work, having received letters from England, Ireland, Italy, Iraq, Germany, Afghanistan, Australia, as well as from 15 states.
With six first-grade classes at the school (about 118 kids), Ms. Planas-Borgstrom said the classes are receiving three to four pieces of mail a day.
"They’re really excited about it," Ms. Planas-Borgstrom said about the students. "We read the postcards in class. They are really interested in seeing where everything comes from."
Some people even send more items, including tourist packets, and personal pictures to help the kids learn about their cities, Ms. Planas-Borgstrom said.
The students and teachers track the letters as they go from place to place with maps in their classrooms. They learn about the destinations through books, maps and sometimes the Internet.
One class was able to gather enough information to put together their own book about New Zealand, Ms. Planas-Borgstrom said.
Considering its popularity, Ms. Planas-Borgstrom said the teachers are definitely planning to try the project again next year, and possibly will involve some of the older kids. "The response this year has been unbelievable," she said. "It’s fun for us (the teachers) too because we get to see how far things go."