Visiting a musher’s kennel in Alaska is an amazing experience. I remember the first time I saw a dog yard full of huskies. I had never seen so many happy, wagging tails at one time, but I also noticed the unique design of the doghouses. I had never seen any built quite like that before: …
Just in time for the holidays, I read Musher’s Night Before Christmas, by Tricia Brown, to my class. The book is a fun version of the Clement C. Moore classic poem, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas written in 1822. In this modern Alaskan tale, Santa asks the help of a champion musher and his dog …
As the year comes to a close, we have been organizing, cleaning up, and preparing our classroom for the new year. One of these tasks involves bringing down our Iditarod calendar from the wall. Old calendars can be recycled into a fantastic art project I like to call “stretched art” using basic art supplies and …
To celebrate Computer Science Education Week, students around the world are participating in the Hour of Code. This global event brings computer science into schools to allow students, for one hour, to learn basic programming and coding to nurture problem-solving skills, logic, and creativity. My class spent some time designing an Iditarod Trail course for …
In honor of Thanksgiving this year, my class disguised paper turkeys as husky dogs and mushers preparing for the 2016 Iditarod. They wrote about their plans for escape from the farm in first person narratives. This time-honored school tradition involves a lot of creativity, humor, and great writing. What a perfect way to save a turkey …
We have been spending some time in class this last week learning about some of the people behind the scenes of the Iditarod that help bring The Last Great Race® to people around the world. When my students see the amazing photographs of the mushers and their dog teams along the trail, they ask …
The 2016 Iditarod class has been learning about informational text and graphic features in my language arts class. We used the Scholastic book Mush! Sled Dogs of the Iditarod by Joe Funk and the Iditarod.com site to help us learn all about the history and fascinating trivia and facts of the Last Great Race on …
Our amazing 4th grade students at Eanes Elementary School spent several days designing and creating a “Circuit City” in each classroom for the culmination of our energy unit in science. Of course, the 2016 Iditarod class created the city of Nome, Alaska, under the twinkling northern lights, with dedicated dog teams on their way to …
In June, I had the wonderful opportunity to visit with Jon Van Zyle at his home, kennel, and studio while in Alaska for the Iditarod Summer Teacher Camp. In March, I had the honor of meeting Jon as a finalist for the Iditarod Teacher on the Trail™. I was thrilled to get to know the …
This week our Eanes Elementary School fourth graders have been continuing our research about energy, force, and motion in our science classes. We learned about Newton’s Laws of Motion, and we decided to put our knowledge to the test. In a wonderful STEM activity, our students created balloon racers using their science knowledge. My class …
