Are you tired of learning about geography from a book? Are you looking for a fun way to make this subject come alive in your home? Then I have just the project for you, Flat Travelers. Appropriate for a variety of ages and at the cost as low as a stamp, this is a fun way to learn about the world around you without leaving the comfort of your home.
The Flat Traveler project is modeled after the Flat Stanley books written by Jeff Brown. In the books, the illustrated character, Stanley is flattened when a bulletin board falls on him in his sleep. As a result, the new Flat Stanley is able to travel around the world with an envelope and the mail system as his transportation. From this concept a massive Flat Stanley Project ensued and today children all over the world exchange Flat Stanley’s in an effort to learn more about the peoples and cultures in places we probably will never visit.
The Flat Traveler project is very similar. Like the Flat Stanley project, the travelers are mailed in an envelope with some sort of a journal that allows the recipients to share the unique aspects of their locale. The main difference is that the travelers are not modeled after the character in the book, and therefore are not true Flat Stanley’s.
Though I’d heard of this project when my kids were little, it wasn’t until this past year that we finally exchanged travelers with a family that I met through my blog. I initially thought it would be fun to host their travelers and leave it at that, but when my two youngest teenagers heard about the project, they wanted to get in on the action. The result was Military Guy and Tin Can Man. I created the accompanying journal- which really could be much simpler.
The characters were laminated, tucked in an envelope with the blank journal and away they went to Oregon.
We kept a journal of our experiences with the visitors and took a ton of pictures, while picking up brochures and postcards of the places we’d been. It was a lot of fun so my kids couldn’t resist participating in another swap. The second time our travelers went to Hawaii. Military Guy and Tin Can Man were slightly modified for the occasion and once more we mailed them off with an accompanying journal.
This has been a fun project to participate in. It’s exciting to read the returned journals and see pictures of our travelers and know that they were on part of the Oregon Trail, at the Pacific Ocean and saw a live venting volcano! Our packages also came back with a box of goodies which allowed us to sample some of the local Kona Coffee from Hawaii and chocolate coffee bars that had a distinct coffee taste.
Since we are new to the state we now live in, hosting the Flat Travelers was a great way for us to learn not only the history and geography of the states our travelers visited, but our own state as well.
You can find information about the Flat Travelers at this great Squidoo lens and if you’d like to get started, there is a Yahoo! group that makes it easy for you.
In the meantime, my daughter who loves all things Eiffel Tower would love to swap with someone in France. Any takers?
When not writing for The Homeschool Classroom, you’ll find Tonya writing about homeschooling and family travel at her own blog Live the Adventure.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I know of another fairly inexpensive way of making geography come alive for the at home student. My sister-in-law bought an inflatable globe called an EarthBall. (http://www.earthball.com/education/Education.htm) This is a realistic looking globe, without borders or labels. It’s what you would see from space.
She uses the globe and the handbook that came with it to play geography games with her children.
I know a family who marks a huge wall map with pins for every destination they make! So Fun!
Rachel´s last [type] ..Just The Girls The I Let The Kids Stay Up Way Too Late Edition
We ended up using a lot of the things we collected from Flat Traveler trades in our 50 States notebook.
(Thanks for linking to my Flat Traveler lens!)
Jimmie´s last [type] ..Living Math Dropout
Hi! It seems my comment never appeared here. We are French and would love to swap! ;-)