Dear Families and Friends,
Hello!  My name is Amanda Swope, and I teach fourth grade at Dallastown Area
Intermediate School in Pennsylvania. In our Social Studies class we read the children’s
book Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. In the story, the main character, Stanley, gets flattened
when his big bulletin board accidentally falls on him while he’s sleeping. He’s flattened
into an inch-thick little boy! As you can imagine, the kids thought that this was
hilarious!  As the story progresses, Stanley gets an invitation to visit his friend in
California. Stanley’s family cannot afford a plane or train ticket, so they decide to mail
him in an envelope to California for his vacation. He is able to see many sights on the
western coast and has a spectacular visit as a “flattened” boy.
In class we have begun our study of the five regions in the United States: the
Northeast, Southeast, Middle West, Southwest, and West. We thought that it would be
really neat to study each region with actual real-life stories and perspectives from people
that we wish we could see more often. Therefore, we decided to flatten ourselves, like
Stanley, and spend some time with you in your region!
The kids have told you in their letters what they’d like to do while they are visiting
you. It would be nice if they could stay with you forever, but we need your information
mailed back to school within a reasonable amount of time so that we can continue
learning from your spectacular experiences! When you mail us back, will you please
write our class a letter telling us about your experiences with this project? You can even
send us pictures if you’d like! Our class would love to hear from you and see what there
is to do in your region. We are very excited to receive information from you! 
Please mail our “flattened” selves, along with a letter or anything else that you might
have for us, back to:
Your student’s name
C/o Ms. Swope
Dallastown Area Intermediate School
94 Beck Road
York, PA 17403
or
You may send it back to the student.
Thank you so much for allowing us to spend some “vacation” time with you! I
appreciate your support immensely in helping us learn about the five different regions!
Sincerely,
Ms. Amanda Swope