Ms Rote read the story to her students and in the book Flat Stanley, being very small and flat, is mailed away to visit friends. Keeping the basic premise of the story and making a slight twist by changing the main character Flat Stanley into a gingerbread man, the children drew and colored their own men to mail to friends and family around the world.

Ms Rote said, “In keeping with the holiday theme the children decorated gingerbread men and with the help of their families wrote letters to people who lived far away asking for the recipient to mail back a postcard that told something about where they live. We are using the project to touch on geography and a bit of history about each place.”

As a result of the project the students received more than 40 postcards from places all over the United States such as Kentucky, California, Florida, and Texas, as well as the faraway countries of China, Hong Kong, Sweden, Germany, and Cambodia.

The children were very anxious to see where the gingerbread men have been and came to class each morning questioning whether any new postcards had arrived. As the cards came in, Ms Rote and her assistant Evelyn Sanford helped the children locate on a United States map as well as a world map where the gingerbread men were. “As each card comes in, we pinpoint it and try to figure out how the gingerbread men got from one place to another. For example, if he was in Florida how did he get there; did he drive, take a boat or plane?”

Sam Parsons said that his gingerbread man went to Kentucky and sent back information about the many horses that live there. Jack Buchler said he sent his gingerbread man to some friends of his grandpa who live in Italy and from that they learned about olive trees. T.J. Echeverria quickly raised his hand to say that in addition to learning about the olive trees that grew in Italy they also learned about the Coliseum and the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

The gingerbread men had quite a variety of adventures on their world travels, experiencing the thrill of skiing and riding on an elephant, riding up in the Space Needle in Seattle and visiting Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

One of the most memorable postcards was received by student Ben Roman. Ben’s babysitter helped him send his gingerbread man to Brazil. The postcard Ben received was written in Portuguese so Ben’s babysitter came in to translate the letter for the students.

Ms Rote said that the children have worked on this project for well over a month. She summed it up by saying, “It has turned out to be such an exciting way to touch on different places and the family involvement was great.”