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Permission was granted by Nancy Pope, the
Curator of The National Postal Museum,
Smithsonian Institution to use this photograph of
Owney..
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Permission was granted by Nancy Pope, the
Curator of The National Postal Museum,
Smithsonian Institution to use this photograph of
Owney..
Our
second grade is participating in an activity prompted by a book
entitled Owney the Traveling Dog.
Owney was the mascot of the Rail Mail Service which was part of the
U.S. Postal Service. Lynn Hall's book, Owney The Traveling Dog,
tells of his travels. It is out of print but available on the
Internet. To help the children appreciate these travels, teachers
classes nationwide are sending a stuffed dog named Owney from state
to state. We send picture post cards of our state to the other states
as Owney visits each of us. We also keep in contact through e-mail.
There are many other sites nationwide that we get to look up and view
as a result of our Owney adventure.
Our project started in 1998 when my class received email from a Bev Adams in California asking us if we wanted to join a project called Owney the Traveling Dog. We agreed that it would be fun to communicate with other classes through the mail and over the Internet. However, another class joined her group before us and we had to join a new group. That group was turned over to us.
We borrowed the book, Owney the Traveling Dog, by Lynn Hall (1977) from a library in a city 40 miles from us and read it. This story is about a real puppy that was found in Albany, NY in 1888. The puppy was adopted by postal workers, and it lived at the post office. You can read that story by clicking on Lynn Hall's story below. Lynn Hall gave us permission to put it on our web site. there is also a picture of Lynn Hall and a letter that she sent us.
When Owney died, his body was preserved and is on display at the National Postal Museum. the postal museum also has a factual book about Owney.
The Basics
1. Collect postcards for the other
participating classes and prepare to mail them. Postcards can be
made or purchased.
2. Get ready to have Owney visit your class.
3. Mail Owney to the next class on the day listed on his
schedule. If you cannot send him on time, please let us know.
Also please let us know if he does not arrive on time. We can notify
others on the list if the schedule is changing, Postage costs between
$5-$15. People tend to add pins, etc. to Owney's vest and the
added weight increases the postage.
4. Mail the postcards as soon as possible.
5. Send a paragraph or two to rgranger@horton.col.k12.me.us which
will be forwarded to the other teachers and also posted in the
journal.
6. Project ideas and lesson extensions are available on this page but
nothing more is required.
