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Erin Montgomery 2015 Teacher on the Trail
Skype is an incredible tool teachers have at their fingertips allowing them to communicate with other classes and speakers around the world. Skype in the Classroom provides teachers with opportunities to share lessons, join lessons, and find guest speakers for their classrooms. A very popular Skype in the Classroom lesson is Mystery Skype. My class recently …
In 2013, a fan from Florida placed an order with a restaurant in Unalakleet to have a pizza waiting for Matthew Failor when he arrived with his dogs. Would this be the start of a tradition? In 2014, there were five pizzas waiting for Matthew in Unalakleet, which he didn’t get to eat since he …
With Veterans Day just around the corner, November 11th, you may want to think about doing a lesson comparing dog heroes to our human heroes. This lesson, aligned with the Common Core, is broken into three parts. I will be starting this lesson with my class on Monday with the hopes of holding our culminating …
On our last checkpoint journey, we left Karin Hendrickson in Rainy Pass. The next part of the trek will take us about 35 miles to Rohn. This section of the trail can be quite challenging. Mushers will summit the highest point on the trail and travel through the infamous Dalzell Gorge before finally arriving in …
What number checkpoint is Rainy Pass? How many miles is Rainy Pass from the Ceremonial Start in Anchorage? What percentage of the trail have the mushers covered when they get to Rainy Pass? How many miles does a musher have to go until they arrive in Nome? What percentage of the trail do they have …
What qualities do you feel an Iditarod musher displays? My students recently came up with a lengthy list of qualities that they felt described an Iditarod musher. There are plenty of them and they’re unique. My school currently has the most recently created Iditarod Traveling Quilt, which was designed this summer by teachers at the …
As a reminder, I’ll be posting Trivia on the first and third Tuesdays of the month. Checkpoint Checkups will be posted on the second and fourth Tuesdays. The Last Checkpoint Checkup left us in Finger Lake. The journey to the next checkpoint, Rainy Pass will cover 30 beautiful and exciting miles. I spoke with Karin (Car-in) …
Training for the Iditarod definitely is a journey. It is quite the time commitment on the part of the musher. For the dog…it is pure fun! They’re doing what they love to do. I spoke with a couple different mushers on what their fall training looks like. Some mushers do different things and start at …
I like to have my students learn the history of the Iditarod early on in the year so we can refer to it as we progress. This past week my students have been completing and sharing tasks about the history of the Iditarod. In addition to using Katie Mangelsdorf’s book Champion of Alaskan Huskies, students also used …
Iditarod trivia facts will be posted on the first and third Tuesday of each month. If you haven’t started using them in your classroom, now is the time to start. After talking to some teachers at the Midwest Sled Dog Symposium and Iditarod Teacher Conference, I found out how some teachers are using this in …