Flat Travelers in our Minnesota Homeschool
Oct. 25, 2005
What is a Flat Traveler?
Are you curious about what flat traveling is all about?
It seems to have originated from a children's book titled Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. Stanley had an unfortunate accident and was flattened, which turned into a positive thing when he wants to take a trip but can't afford it because his family decides to mail him.
What we did is we printed out some paper doll patterns and colored them. Each of my kids picked what kind of flat traveler they wanted to send. Some people send flat pets, animals, historic figures, or a paper doll of themselves. We also laminated our travelers to make them more durable. Once our travelers were ready we had to find host families for them.

My favorite source for finding host families is a Yahoo group called, Flat Travelers Homeschool.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/flat_travelers_homeschool/

From this group you will learn how to compose a journal, you will find families willing to host your traveler, you'll see pictures of other travelers, it really is a complete site.
After your travelers are mailed to the host family they will show your traveler the town! They will take the traveler to places the host family is visiting and also make him a part of their daily routine. The host family will also keep a journal of sorts documenting things about their own family, their town, area, and what they have been doing. Most travelers are gone 3-4 weeks, but we found the average length of time to be 6-8 weeks.
Our travelers have been to Texas, British Columbia, Alberta and Illinois. Traveling is not without its risks; we have one traveler missing and one has been gone for almost a year. It does happen, but I don't know how often.
One way to bypass that is to have Cyber Flat Travelers, which is one purpose of this blog.  With the cyber-traveling you would exchange your travelers via email, perhaps scan items and journal via email or a Blog.

Great Links about Flat Traveling
This site describes flat travelling, shares photos and has helpful links. http://www.angelfire.com/empire2/flattraveling/

The Official Flat Stanley Site
http://flatstanley.enoreo.on.ca/

A Fellow Flat Traveling Family
http://www.zorenaflattravelers.blogspot.com/

Another Family's Adventures with Flat Travelling
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/zanyzookeeper/

FLAT TRAVELER'S HOME SCHOOL SCRAPBOOK
http://flattravelschool.bravejournal.com/

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Comments

Sep. 26, 2005 - Untitled Comment

Posted by KarenW


Wow! What a great idea. I'll have to check that out.


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Jan. 10, 2006 - Untitled Comment

Posted by Kristal


That sounds really fun and a great way to learn about many things!! Hope when our daughter starts schooling (she is a 1 yr now) that people are still doing this!! Your blog is beautiful!! You have done a great job on it!!


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Aug. 18, 2007 - Flat Traveling RoCkS!!!

Posted by mama3beartn


My family participates in the Flat Traveling exchange. We love it.Each kids has their own and we have a family one too. This has been a great addition to our homeschool activites. A true experience. I totally agree if you have not tried it, give it a try. Just remember not to take on more then you can handle. We like to put our full focus on one. So we usually won't Host more than one at a time. But since my kids are getting a bit older, they can focus on one each and that way we can do more. It's definatly a great way to work on their writing skills. :)

Great Topic with great links, thank for sharing too,

God Bless,
Sherry (TN)


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