Flat Stanley

Ashlyn's class read a book about a boy named Stanley who makes himself flat so that he can travel in books. They each had to create their own Flat Stanley. They had to bring him home so he could go to work with mom or dad and then tell the class about his experience. Ashlyn wanted her Flat Stanley to go to work with her dad. Here is a letter her dad wrote to the class about their experience together.

Flat Stanley and I did a lot of work together. I am a soils and structural engineer. We wrote several reports together telling people how to prepare and compact the dirt where they want to build their house or pool so that they won’t fall down or crack. I took a picture of Stanley sitting in my chair at my office for you to see. Stanley and I also drew several plans to tell people how to build their buildings. In particular, we drew several plans for swimming pools, waterfalls, waterslides, and caves. That is one of the fun things I get to do. I sent Stanley back with a pool plan for each of your classmates so that they can see what pool engineering plans look like and how a pool is built with steel and concrete. We traveled all over the Bay Area. We traveled to San Francisco, San Jose, and San Rafael just to name a few places. In San Rafael, we looked at a lagoon, or pond, near some peoples’ houses where a wall was falling over into the lagoon. We figured out how the people could fix the wall so their house wouldn’t slide into the lagoon. I took a picture of Stanley at the lagoon. We also looked at pools that were cracking and leaking and figured out how to fix the pools so boys and girls like you and your classmates could swim in their pools again and we looked at pools and buildings that were being built to make sure the people were building them right. We had a good time together except when we had to tell people that their pools or houses were broken and couldn’t be fixed. It was our job to tell the people the bad news. I didn’t get a lot of pictures of Stanley because it was raining on us on most of our travels. Hopefully you enjoy the pictures and the pool plans. Thanks for sending Stanley to visit.