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Marching On!

Continue the Race with Lesson Ideas!

by Judi Roach

03/30/2008

The month of March is almost gone. As a finalist for Teacher on the Trail 2009, this past March has been full of excitement and adventure unlike any that I have experienced before.

As we -March On... I would like to encourage teachers to continue to grow in their teaching of the Iditarod. Each year can be a new, slightly different adventure than the previous year. There are hundreds of different ways to teach Iditarod. Don‘t be afraid to try something new, adding to what has worked well with your students. Please don‘t think that you have to plan a huge, multi-faceted unit that involves an enormous amount of time and reproduction of materials on your part. Use the Iditarod Educational website to seek out materials and references. My 4^th graders love writing letters to their mushers. We used the suggested guidelines and lesson plan off of the website for the past two years. Just last week, one of my students received a letter back from their musher. Miss Alexis was thrilled to receive not only a return letter, but a picture of her musher in the starting chute at the restart as well! All students must learn to write letters. What a great venue for learning that skill! Another valuable resource is Shelley Gill‘s resource book on Alaska. This contains simple lessons on geography, science, math, etc. Incorporating those mini lessons helps build background knowledge and does not require a lot of time or planning. I used a math/map lesson during my leveled math class when teaching estimation. The kids had a great time drawing maps to scale and estimating. Finally, seek out the -People Resources that are available to you. As part of our school wide Iditarod unit, Curt Door, a kennel owner and former sprint dog musher, brought his dog Olive to our school. After his presentation, students harnessed and bootied dogs. Bruce Brosnin, a photographer who traveled to Alaska numerous times over the years, gave a presentation on Alaska. Bruce did a great job of teaching students about facts and non-facts of Alaska‘s geography, weather, Native Americans and culture. His passion for Alaska, especially for fishing, was very evident. Bruce shared a colored, art rubbing he created of one of the salmon he caught. It was very cool! Seek out People Resources; you will be amazed at how much you and your students will learn from parents and other community members who have firsthand knowledge of Alaska and the Iditarod.

April is around the corner and standardized tests are lurking, I will be incorporating some poetry fun to break up the monotony as April is National Poetry Month. In March, we wrote limericks. A musher or dog limerick could provide some humorous writings along with acrostic poems, free verse, diamante poems, and shape poems; what a repertoire! Why not use all of the images and background knowledge the students have acquired during Iditarod to create an illustrated classroom book of Iditarod poetry? Creativity Abounds, Mr. Silverstein won‘t have anything on us!

The adventure of the Last Great Race will continue to serve as an exciting learning tool for years to come. As I -March On, I will always treasure the wonderful people and experiences gained through my Iditarod learning and teaching adventures, Happy Spring!