Musher Banquet Centerpieces
Your classroom will enjoy the thrill of being a part of the Last Great Race on Earth® along with recognition at the musher banquet by having their creations on the tables.
Provide your students with an opportunity to be involved in a service learning project. You can’t always be somewhere ‘physically’, but what you can do is help to create an environment for this exciting event. Be with us through your students’ art and creative endeavors.
Submission Guidelines:
- Develop a concept and create an example in the form of a sketch, written explanation, model or digital image of your classroom’s idea.
- Remember, keep your design SIMPLE for inexpensive mailing and ease of set up at the banquet. Easy, ready to go, freestanding designs will be best. Designs that are complicated or will require multiple steps in setting up on the tables, or extra volunteer time to help set up, won’t meet the criteria for this project.
- Centerpieces should not exceed 8″ high by 10 ” wide and should be free standing. They should be ONE piece and should not require additional set up or building from banquet volunteers.
- Keep in mind shipping, ease of set up, size and theme.
- Final projects due in Alaska 2 weeks before the race start
- Email an example of your planned design, at your earliest convenience, and the information listed below to Linda Fenton at linda.fenton@iditarod.com
School Name
Educator Contact(s) name
Email Address
Grade level(s) participating
Phone Number
Number of centerpieces your students are able to make
- Participating classrooms will be asked to create up to 20 table decorations. However, a smaller or larger number will work, too.
- Participating classrooms will be responsible for providing all materials, packing and shipping costs.
Trail Mail
It’s time to secure your class’s part in history by sending a piece of mail down the trail in an Iditarod musher sled! Your piece will be put in one of the student designed cachets, placed securely in a musher’s sled, and mailed back to you from Nome!
Purchase your spot on a sled for just $10 at the link found on the Iditarod EDU website.
Limit to one spot per order/classroom. You must list a separate teacher and class with a separate email for each envelope.
Once your purchase is complete, you will be emailed specific directions about how to send your piece of mail to be included. Basically, you will be sending one 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of regular paper down the trail. What is on your paper is totally up to you! Your students could write a poem or story, they could create a piece of artwork, they could all include their signatures… Whatever you and your students decide.
Once your piece of mail is received by our program coordinator, it will be put into an Educational Trail Mail envelope that will feature this year’s winning student art piece.
Your filled cachet will be taken to the Musher Meeting in Anchorage that is held on the Thursday before the race. Your musher will sign the envelope and it will be collected back by our volunteers who will have it packaged for safe travels down the trail.
Your mail will next be delivered to your musher at the race restart, and will be packed safely on his or her sled for its journey to Nome. Once it arrives under the Burled Arch, your letter will be postmarked in Nome and put into the mail stream to make its way back to you!
Please note: We are unable to honor requests for specific mushers to carry an envelope. We are also not responsible for mail being lost in the US mail system.
Each musher is limited to carrying Trail Mail from 4 classes, so be sure to take advantage of this opportunity soon! Sales are limited to one piece of mail per class or homeschool family.
If you have questions, please email trailmail@iditarod.com
Postcard Challenge
Join the Iditarod Postcard Challenge!!!!
We are looking for classes or homeschool families from several states to round out our sixth annual Iditarod Postcard Challenge!
If you join the project, you are committing to sending postcards to each class on the list between the start of school and when the first musher leaves the Iditarod starting line on the first Saturday in March! In your postcard message, we ask you to tell a little about your state and what you look forward to in this year’s Iditarod. You can add information about your state’s symbols, things your state is known for, fun things to do in your state, your favorite thing about your state, or anything you want to share. This is an excellent opportunity to learn about our 50 United States!
If you want to join the program, please email linda.fenton@iditarod.com as soon as possible!
We are still looking to add classrooms from:
Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Louisiana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
IditaRead Program
Always a favorite, IditaRead projects motivate students to read more, read more often, and keep reading! Now your students can travel the Iditarod Trail race route as they achieve reading goals just as they watch the mushers move along the race route.
Teachers work with students to set individualized reading goals. As students reach each goal, their avatars move down the trail from checkpoint to checkpoint on the race map just like the GPS Tracker that shows mushers during the race. On reaching Nome, a student will receive an official finisher’s certificate.
Any number of classes or students can be tracked and the goals can be customized. For example, students may read for a set amount of time, a number of pages, or by chapters. Teachers can even have students complete a reading lesson or activity to progress. When a student finishes the assigned task , the teacher reviews and approves it, and automatically, the student’s avatar, GIA, will move down the trail!
Easy to sign up and easy to use:
- Sign Up – Please go to iditaread.iditarod.com and complete the registration form.
- Review Process – We review all submissions. You will receive a confirmation email within 48 hours after signup.
- Begin the race to Nome with your students!
Musher Letter Writing Program
Allow your students to feel connected to the race like never before! In this program, teachers will be given the addresses of the mushers who agree to participate in this program each year. Have your students write to a musher with the chance to receive something back! See all the information below:
- Please read this information and suggestions before writing to mushers.
- We only send contact information to educators who are needing the contact information for educational purposes. We do not release email information for mushers. We do not release any contact information directly to students.
- We are grateful to those mushers who do respond to student mail. However, please remember that mushers are busy and some letters of response may not arrive until May, June, or even over the summer months.
- Not all mushers will respond. We do not guarantee response or a time frame for those who do respond.
- Following our guidelines may lead to greater success with your educational project. Thanks for your patience!
* Please Note: Each year’s musher contact list is updated by mid-December because mushers can sign up for the race until the end of the November; we don’t know who all of our mushers will be until that time. We will send out the ‘new’ contact list in mid December. It is not updated for musher withdrawals or additions, so please check the current musher roster when you begin your letter writing project. Please use an updated list EACH YEAR to make sure you are writing to the correct list of mushers and that you are writing to mushers who agree to get letters from students.
- Complete the yearly Google Form to register – see the annual website post for this
- Once the education department has received your request, you will receive the musher contact information after the musher registration deadline of December 2.
- If you register after this date, addresses will be sent every two weeks (or so) until the close of the program.
- Students should choose the mushers they’d like to write to and create well written letters that ask good questions and wish mushers success. When students view information on a musher’s website first, they are able to come up with questions that aren’t already answered on the website, making responses from mushers who do write back much more interesting for your students.
- Place the letter(s) to each musher in a separate envelope. Along with your letter(s), be sure to include a self-addressed-stamped-envelope (SASE) if you would like to receive a reply.
- Once your letter(s) and the SASE are inside of your envelope, address the correspondence to the musher using the address list that was sent to you.
- Remember to put correct postage on the return envelope. REMEMBER if the musher is from another country, you cannot use United States postage on the return envelopes. Mushers must return mail using foreign postage. Contact your post office for assistance.
THIS IS IMPORTANT:
Send the envelopes directly to the musher. Don’t send the letters to Iditarod Headquarters. Mushers do not get their mail at Headquarters and they will not be forwarded or delivered from there.
Questions: Email Jim Deprez at jim.deprez@iditarod.com or Annie Kelley at aekelley825@gmail.com
