3rd Grade Language Arts

Welcome to Debski’s Diner: Lesson Ideas from the I.C.E. Cohort

Our first Iditarod Certified Educator’s cohort is off and running down the trail! Their first challenge was to develop a quick lesson idea based on the theme of Debski’s Diner. Debski is the amazing cook for all of the volunteers in Nome. She serves as a kind of den mom for all of the volunteers …

Altered Fairy Tales with an Iditarod Twist

Grades 3-6 What if Cinderella was a musher? Or instead of seven dwarves, Snow White had found seven huskies? In this unit, students will explore some Alaska themed retelling of fairy tales and folk tales as they prepare to write their own Iditarod themed retelling! Mentor texts used include Alaska’s Sleeping Beauty, The Salmon Princess: …

Pourquoi Is That The Way It Is? Writing Creatively to Explain

Grades 2-6 Why do sled dogs howl? Why do they love to run? Why do mushers stand behind the sled? All of these questions are great fodder for writing pourquoi stories – stories that explain why something is the way it is. In this unit, students explore northern themed pourquoi tales. Inhabit Media, and Inuit …

Meet Kamik

Grades 2-4; others with modification Meet Kamik, an Inuit puppy, in this series that is based on life memories of elders from Arviat, Nunavut. In book one, Kamik: An Inuit Puppy Story, Jake finally gets a puppy all his own! But a puppy is far more work than he ever imagined, especially a puppy like …

An Animal Encounter

Over the summer I did a post about Alaskan animals.  I was fascinated by seeing a moose, porcupine, and bear all in one night.  After that night, I took what I saw and turned it into a language arts and science lesson.  Along the Iditarod trail, and during training, a musher may encounter may different …

Book Review: Sled Dogs Run

By Jonathan London and illustrated by Jon Van Zyle, the Official Artist of the Iditarod, this book for 6-9 year olds describes a young musher’s experience raising and training sled dog puppies and her run with them on a sled in winter. Readers as young as 4 years old and as old as 11 and …