Bob the Railway Dog

I had never heard the story of Bob the Railway Dog until this book arrived in the library.  Apparently Bob is a sort of folk hero in Australia and I discovered a whole website devoted to Bob and his travels.  There is even a statue of Bob.

photo from Australian Geographic

The 3rd grade classes started off by discussing things they already knew about Australia before diving in to read the story and take a look at the website with photos and excerpts from old newspaper account of Bob and even a Google Map showing where the statue of Bob is located.

Something about a dog that traveled the rails all over Australia and made friends wherever he went captured my imagination and it was fun to share the story and the pictures and talk about Bob all together.



Bob the Railway Dog website (this is the one we looked at in class)

National Geographic article about Bob

Happy travels and Read On!
-Ms. J.

DC Eagle Cam

This week in 2nd grade library we read, "Mama built a Little Nest" by Jennifer Ward. Then we did some scientific observations of a real live bald eagles' nest with two live baby eagles.

Here is the link to the Live Washington, DC Eagle Cam.

Don't miss it!

Did you catch this Sunday's New York Times for Kids?

Well, if you missed it we have a copy in the library.

Stop by and check it out.

Read on!
Ms. J.

Fun with Rhinoceroses

This is a brand new book about a woman named Anna Merz and her hard work to save African rhinos that I decided to read with my 2nd grade classes.  This book has some great extra materials in the back matter at the end including links to videos with real baby Rhinos so you can see them running around (just like puppies!) and also get a chance to hear what a wide variety of sounds they make. It is fun to show students how to use the extra material at the end of a book to get more information and to learn more on the topic.

After reading about Anna it makes the book come alive to hear her actually speaking about her work:

Here are some funny and rather unexpected baby Rhinos noises: