It's been a while...

I know I haven't posted much here lately.  I have been busy with social events, travel, and homework.  I know I haven't been in school for two years, but I had a homework project due last week that I was working on.  See, my youngest nephew is in First Grade, and he his class read a book about a character named Flat Stanley.  You can read all about the book and the "Flat Stanley Project" here.  

Thomas had deemed me worthy to have his Flat Stanley for a few days, and so I needed to take him on some adventures and show Stanley around Atlanta.  This is not my first experience with Flat Stanley.  Two ye

ars ago his older brother also had a Flat Stanley to send off, and that Flat Stanley came to see my graduation.   Flashing back a few months ago to when my sister (the mother of these two boys) was in Atlanta, we were joking around as to how funny it would be if Flat Stanley "grew up" while he was away and returned as an adult.  So when I got Flat Stanley, my first project was to figure out how to make a large version of him.  A few digital scans, help from Adobe Acrobat, and a big cardboard box later, and you can see the result.

I took an exact-o knife to the edges, and cut out a 48 inch tall Flat Stanley.  Just as an FYI, that is the average height of a First Grader.  I also shrunk him down to about 8 inches, but that wasn't as fun or as challenging.  I took these various Stanley's out with me and took some documenting photos, and created the appropriate dialogue to chronicle our adventures together.  

Here is the final travel log of my adventures with Flat Stanley.  


















My intention was to make it fun for the kids and the teacher.  I hope both audiences get a kick out of Flat Stanley's adventures.

As a side note,  I was meaning to send back the life size Stanley back with the original, and I had even devised the method as well as a PVC pipe exoskeleton to support him.  Unfortunately, my bonding device didn't work as planned, and I didn't have enough time before the deadline to fix it.  If I had one or two more days, there would be a 48 inch Flat Stanley occupying the corner of my nephews first grade classroom.  Alas, it was not to be.  

This was actually a lot of fun.  I probably went a bit overboard (and over the head of a first grade sense of humor)  but it was worth it.  I'm am actually a bit sad that this is the last nephew, so I won't have another chance to do a Flat Stanley project.  I think that is why I did a lot with this one - I knew there wouldn't be another chance.