Flat Aggie Adventures Newsletter Focuses on Corn and Soybean Production!
Raise your hand if you read Flat Stanley in school? Flat Stanley is an American children’s book series written by Jeff Brown. According to the Flat Stanley Project, “Dale Hubert, a 3rd grade teacher created a fun project to accompany the stories, little did he know that it would become a country wide initiative. Students begin by reading the original Flat Stanley book. They expand their learning by creating a Flat Stanley to mail to a friend, pen pal, or relative in another state. The goal of the project is to increase reading and writing skills as well as expose students to different places.”
I remember my sister and I mailed our Flat Stanley to Texas and Missouri to visit family. My cousins sent back photos and journal entries from their time at football games, restaurants, a Friday night bonfire, etc. The project was super memorable!
Fast forward to 2018, Reicks View Farms came to Linn County Farm Bureau looking for a fun way to partner to help increase both of our agriculture educational efforts. A team of us, Buchanan, Linn and Delaware County Farm Bureau, came up with the idea to create a Flat Aggie newsletter. I had heard the term Flat Aggie being tossed around the Ag in the Classroom world and knew it would be a perfect project. Flat Aggie Adventures is a six-month newsletter series geared towards a 3rd-5th grade reading level. Newsletter content meets both literacy and science Iowa Core Standards. Reicks View sent us photos and descriptions of what was happening in the photo, and we put the content together in newsletter format!
We currently have completed series for pork, dairy, turkey, careers, and now corn and soybeans. One new issue will be available for download beginning in September. The Flat Aggie Adventures: Corn and Soybeans series was written by Taylor Korte, Region 8 Intern. The series explores tillage, planting, life cycles, fertilizer, harvest, and storage!
Sign up for our newsletter to receive the Flat Aggie Adventures series to your inbox. It is free to sign up and download! www.linncoag.com.
Ways to utilize Flat Aggie:
1. Print it off and have students write and highlight key points.
2. Print and laminate for multiple uses.
3. Keep the newsletter in online format and send to the students or display it in front of the class.
Ways to integrate Flat Aggie into your curriculum:
1. Guided reading time
2. Morning bell ringer
3. Science time
4. Individual reading time
5. Research project
Discussion topics for integration:
1. Identify the STEM careers involved with growing corn and soybeans.
2. Discuss how advances in agriculture have changed production over time.
3. Explore supply and demand and how it relates to our grain industry.
4. Ask students to identify key ideas.
5. Discover the different stages in the life-cycle of an Iowa commodity.
