Author: Created by Jeff Brown, Written by Sara Pennypacker
Title: Flat Stanley’s Worldwide Adventures: The Mount Rushmore Calamity
Illustrator: Macky Pamintuan
Genre: General Fiction, Chapter Book
Subgenre: Adventure, Vacation, Mount Rushmore
Theme: Working together to get the job done
Primary and Secondary Characters: Flat Stanley, Lambchop family , Calamity Jasper
Awards: None Found
Publishing Company: Turtleback Books: A Division of Sanval
Date of Publication: May 2009
Brief Summary and How to Use With Students:
Flat Stanley: The Mount Rushmore Calamity is the first book of Pennypacker’s travel-themed series. Flat Stanley, who was flattened by a bulletin board, and the rest of the Lambchop family go on a fun filled vacation to Mount Rushmore. While there Stanley and his brother, Arthuor, meet a young gold miner named Calamity Jasper. This fun loving trio soon find themselves on a Wild West adventure where some sibling rivalry is experienced. They are able to resolve their minor setbacks though and work to save the day.
The book also has interesting historical and geographical information within the story which make it a fun read for when your class covers US History or the state capitals. After reading the book you can use Flat Stanley internet sources to contact a school in South Dakota to send a classroom flat Stanley to and to have as a classroom pen pal.
The series as a whole can be used in the classroom for when covering different places of the world around us. The original Flat Stanley books are also great for students to be introduced to because that is where they can first learn about Flat Stanley and create their own Flat Stanley and participate in the Flat Stanley Project.
Ideas from Flatstanleybooks.com:
As a class, create (and laminate!) your very own Flat Stanley. Also set up a blank journal to act as a record of "Flat Stanley's Weekend Adventures." Each weekend, award one lucky student the honor of taking home the class Flat Stanley and documenting his or her adventures together with a journal entry and photographs. Have students fill the journal with their weekend adventures throughout the year!
Instruct students to design, illustrate, and cut out their own Flat Stanley's to take with them over a school break. While on vacation, each student should create a scrapbook page on a standard sheet of construction paper about one of his or her adventures with Flat Stanley, whether real or fictional. When everyone returns from the school break, bind all the pages together in a class scrapbook.
For this pen pal activity, you will need to coordinate with another classroom either across the country or in another part of the world. Once you've made the necessary arrangements, instruct students to create their own Flat Stanleys (or use the ones they made in the previous activity). Over the course of several days, have students carry their Flat Stanleys around with them and make daily journal entries about their adventures. Fasten together each student's Flat Stanley with his or her journal and then mail all of the Flat Stanleys to your partner classroom. Meanwhile, your partner classroom will have done the same, so in a few days your class will receive a box of visiting Flat Stanleys! Have each student entertain one of the Flat Stanley guests, making entries in the accompanying journal. After several days, return home the visiting Flat Stanleys and journals. When your students get their own Flat Stanleys back, have them read their journals to find out what their flat friends were up to while on vacation!
How far will your class's Flat Stanley travel? For this pen pal activity, you will again need to coordinate with other interested teachers and librarians. With your students, create a class Flat Stanley and send him to another participating classroom. The students who receive your Flat Stanley should take a photo with him and create a postcard about their city, state, or country. They then mail back your Flat Stanley, along with the photo and postcard that document his trip. Send Flat Stanley out again and again to see how far he can travel—and how much your students can learn about other places! Meanwhile, your students should receive Flat Stanleys from other classrooms so they will also take photos with the visitors and create postcards. As your class's flat mascot travels the world, plot his adventures (with accompanying photos and postcards) on a large map in the classroom.
Flat Stanley has visited with politicians, movie stars, and other celebrities—and he has the photos to prove it! As a class, decide on a famous actor or actress, musician, athlete, politician, or a local celebrity or anyone else to whom you want to send your class Flat Stanley. Put Stanley in the mail along with a class letter introducing him. Also request to have a photo mailed or emailed back to you of your chosen public figure together with Flat Stanley. Instead of asking to have your favorite flat guy returned, suggest that your recipient pass him and your request for a photo along to someone else in the public eye. How many cameos will your Flat Stanley make?
