In February, all 3rd and 4th grade students in Marion School District got the pleasure of seeing “The Musical Adventures of Flat Stanley” presented by Playhouse on the Square from Memphis, TN. The musical is based off of the children's books about Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown. After the performance each classroom was given the opportunity to create their own Flat Stanley and send him on a grand adventure!! Mrs. Murphy’s class at VPA created this Flat Stanley and sent him to Michael Conwill in New York City right before the schools went on the extended break. They would like to share with you the many adventures that their Flat Stanley has experienced during this pandemic. Here is the link to all pictures in this article: https://bit.ly/VPAflatstan
Sorry it took some time for you to hear from Flat Stanley in New York City. He got here just as we started staying at home so we didn’t catch this virus and get sick.
Flat Stanley is looking out my windows at the street where I live. Across the street is where the city is building a new park! But for now it’s just a fenced lot. Here in New York most people live in apartment buildings so we don’t have our own yards outside. So it’s nice to have parks.
In the second picture you see stairs outside the window. That’s a fire escape. If there was a fire in this building we could walk down the stairs at the front of the building if we couldn’t get out through our apartment doors inside the building. Don’t worry - we haven’t ever had to do that! But we know what to do in case that ever happened
There is already a very pretty park just across the street in another direction. It’s a playground for kids. But it’s closed until we can all go out and be around other people. That’s why there are no people in this playground. Flat Stanley is looking through the fence.
Playgrounds are for kids to play in and they are all closed because little kids might not understand how important it is to stay away from other kids when playing. Parks are still open, because they are bigger and you can stay far away from each other if you go there.
Flat Stanley is being careful like we are supposed to - he’s wearing a mask and staying far away from other people when he’s outside.
Here Flat Stanley is in Times Square.
Now it looks like this.
Flat Stanley can’t go up on the red stairs because they’re closed. That’s so people wouldn’t get too close to each other like they used to, like in the picture taken before we had to stay away from each other.
Now Flat Stanley has Time Square mostly to himself!
On the other end of Times Square is the building where the ball drops at midnight on New Year’s Eve. You can see it right above the “2020”. It stays there on the top of that building until it gets raised up that pole so it can drop again at midnight next New Year’s Day. About 2 million people are around here on New Year’s Eve to watch the ball drop!
New York City has lots of streets with tall buildings. But the streets are usually full of cars and trucks and the sidewalks are usually full of people. It’s very weird for New York to not have busy streets and sidewalks!
Flat Stanley is looking out my apartment window again.
And here’s a school near us. Our schools are closed here too. You can see they have the gates closed and there’s red tape across some of the entrance.
People come to New York to see shows. There are many theaters around a big street named Broadway, so the plays and musicals in those theaters are called Broadway shows.
But now all these shows are closed just like your school is. This street usually would be full of cars and people, with lines of people waiting on the sidewalk to buy tickets or go in to see a show.
Our restaurants are closed too, except a few that are only delivering food or let you come pick it up.
New York City is where two big rivers, the Hudson River and the East River, meet the New York Harbor on the Atlantic Ocean. There are beautiful parks all along the waterfronts of the rivers and the harbor.
While we’re all staying at home and away from other people as much as possible it’s still okay for us to go to our parks, as long as we stay far enough apart not to catch this virus and get sick. That’s at least six feet apart, since that’s how far your sneeze or cough can travel!
Along the riverside parks there are piers that are also park spaces. A pier is a platform built out over the water. You can see some of them in these pictures.
This is the Intrepid, a big battleship from World War II. It’s an aircraft carrier, which means planes took off and landed on it while it was out at sea. You can see a little of some of the planes that are on top of the ship. It’s now a museum. You can go all through the ship and look at everything, and you can go on the top and see all the planes.
Flat Stanley has had a wonderful time exploring New York City, but because of the virus he is not able to travel back home just yet. So his friend in NYC has graciously offered to let him stay longer until it is safe to travel home. Keep an eye out for Flat Stanley’s next adventure!!