Ever wonder what it would be like to travel the world without having to pay for an airline ticket? In a sense, students at the Barclay Elementary School in Brockport did just that. With just the cost of postage, the students' virtual journeys were underway. The students went all over the world - vicariously - using paper dolls to do the traveling for them.

It all started when several second-grade classes read "Flat Stanley," a book about a boy who was flattened and went on numerous adventures. The students made their own "Flat Stanleys," paper dolls that they colored and laminated. Then, students sent letters to friends and family asking them to take Flat Stanley to different places and to send back photos, stories, post cards of his journeys.

"The looks on students' faces as they received their Flat Stanleys back in the mail were priceless," said teacher Sharon Dunn. One Stanley came back on crutches and his cast was signed by "Elvis." Apparently he fell off a cliff in Las Vegas and needed to be rescued. Another Stanley is pictured swimming with the stingrays in the Grand Cayman Islands. Another was photographed sitting in a high school Spanish class in South Carolina. The students there made him a small chair and set it on the table so he could see the teacher. While in South Carolina, Stanley even went to the prom. In Philadelphia he was sent back with a friend, "Flat Mindy." The farthest a Flat Stanley traveled was Bosnia.

"The Flat Stanleys are the talk of the school," said Dunn. Students are very interested to find out where they have traveled. When the Flat Stanleys came back, students gave presentations on where their Stanleys went. Some classrooms made bulletin board displays of all the journeys and marked the areas on maps. "It was really a good lesson in history and geography," Dunn said. "Students are having fun learning about the different states and countries and how to locate them on a map."