While most animals in the rainforest live their lives without a name, that doesn't matter to Brandon King and Jackie Kappeler.

The fourth graders at Ross Elementary wanted their addition to their classroom rainforest to have a name -- Brian, after the dog in TV's "Family Guy."

"I don't think they name them in the rainforest," teacher Emily Daquelente told the students. "But if we adopt this guy, sure!"

Daquelente and her students' imaginations transformed the corner of her classroom into a rainforest reading area late last week.

Inspired by "The Great Kapok Tree," Lynne Cherry's children's book about the importance of rainforest conservation, the class designed a habitat similar to what their favorite rainforest animals would live in.

With paper "vines" hanging down, the students hung three-dimensional paper renderings of their favorite rainforest animals side-by-side with stuffed versions.

"When I told them about it, they went nuts," Daquelente said. "They wanted to bring parts of home into the forest. We have Webkinz animals and several construction paper animals. To a lot of them, this means a lot."

Principal Jeff Undertake enjoyed watching the students get excited over their newest project and appreciated the hands-on opportunity the students had after researching the animals they created.

"They're having fun while they're learning," Anderchak said. "It's highly motivational with bringing words and text to life. It's more realistic for them now."

Kayla Naper's jaguar taught her a lot about the animal's camouflaging spots, which act as a mask for the animal.

Naper, 10, of Ross, brought in some of her stuffed animals for the project.

"It's been really cool," Naper said. "It's really neat to have a nice place to relax and read a book."

While Daquelente was glad her students took the opportunity to use their creativity to make the project their own, she knows that the reading rainforest is a good way to get her students motivated when it comes to reading.

"It's really important that they enjoy reading -- getting them to read can be half of the battle," she said. "If they're in a space that's pulling them in, it just becomes a matter of comprehension and understanding, which we have the instruments to work with."