TEDDY BEAR TRAVELS 2ND-GRADERS' PROJECT GOES GLOBAL.

Byline: Naush Boghossian Staff Writer

NEWHALL - Nine travel-weary teddy bears sat atop the pupils' desks, one displaying a torn ear - the only outward sign of its recent tour around the world.

Another bear wore Mardi Gras beads wrapped around its neck, which spoke volumes about its vacation.

If only these stuffed toys could talk.

Penny McMillen's second-grade class at Valley View School named 18 teddy bears last September, outfitted them with decorated backpacks filled with 10 self-addressed postcards and a chain letter explaining the class project and sent the bears off with world travelers.

``Please take me to wherever you are traveling to,'' each note said. ``Write my class a brief note as to what city and state we are in and send it to my class.

``When you are through traveling, please give me to someone else you know who will be traveling so I can keep seeing the world,'' the note said, asking that all traveling bears be returned home to Newhall by March 1.

Even the school's principal participated. She took four bears with her to Hawaii and then passed them on flight attendants.

Soon postcards with unusual stamps, letters and laminated teddy-bear cutouts covered the world map that dominated one of the classroom walls. Yarn connecting different locations on the map traced each bear's travel route.

McMillen confessed she didn't have high hopes for this geography lesson on map skills but was pleasantly surprised when strangers cooperated with the request in each bear's backpack and sent in pictures and letters describing the different adventures. People's participation exposed the students to not only different states but other countries in far continents.

David Jose's bear, Eagle, went to Oaxaca, Mexico, and a postcard came back to the class tell describing the city's food specialty - fried grasshoppers. Eagle next traveled to West Vancouver, where the bear ``reported'' there were seals, bears, deer, eagles and, once in a while, orcas or killer whales.

The bear even sat in on a graduate physical-therapy class at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. A postcard reported that as the bear sat in the class, it could see Mount Ranier, which stands 14,410 feet.

Eight-year-old Damien Van Der Heever's bear, E.T., who went on an African safari where it ``witnessed'' a lion killing a wart hog. E.T. had one of the more extensive travel itineraries - traveling from Los Angeles to South Africa to New Zealand to Hong Kong to Malaysia to Australia, back to South Africa then home to Newhall.

A teddy bear named Dusty went on an Alaskan cruise with a married couple who took photos of it at different tourist attractions and as it looked through a ship's cabin window at a glacier.

Damien thought Dusty was unique among the bears because, ``No other bear got to see an iceberg.''

McMillen thought the most interesting travel experience was the bear that had its picture taken at the Great Wall of China.

``I tried to explain to the children how the wall was built but they're not impressed by it,'' the teacher said. ``Not as much as the lion killing the wart hog or the Mardi Gras bear.''

Or the bear that was shaken by the 6.8-magnitude earthquake in Seattle in February.

The students were excited about their newfound knowledge. Among other things, they have learned that it is actually rare for a lion to kill a wart hog, and that alligators and crawfish live in Louisiana.

The class is still waiting for nine more teddies to come back from their adventures, but so far, McMillen raved, ``It's gone far beyond our imagination.''

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Each traveling teddy bear carries a note explaining the class project plus postcards so the children receive mail from all places the bear visits.

(2 -- color) At Valley View Elementary in Newhall, a large wall map in Penny McMillan's 2nd-grade classroom charts each travel bear's progress.

(3) Second-grader Drew Torgesson, 8, looks at the postcards from faraway places.

(4) Emily Pence, 7, adjusts one of the teddy bears that have toured the world, ``reporting'' to Newhall with postcards, in a school project to help a Valley View 2nd-grade class learn geography and map skills.

David R. Crane/Staff Photographer