Social Studies

Skyping Stone Fox

Last year, 2013 Iditarod Teacher on the Trail ™, Linda Fenton issued a challenge to see how many students she could get to read Stone Fox (http://itcteacheronthetrail.com/2012/12/28/stone-fox/).  The timing was perfect for me.  The fourth grade had recently dropped the novel from their repertoire, so I was able to pick it up and tie it …

Tales from the Trail: Neither Rain, Sleet, Nor Snow The Mail Must Go

“Always striving to find ways to get the trail recognized, another idea was hatched at one of the many meetings.  The Iditarod Trail was a mail trail, so why not have each musher carry mail?  An arrangement was made with the U.S. Postal Service to carry cachets, packets of letters, over the Iditarod to Nome.  …

Sled Dogs of Denali

One of the big parts of our Social Studies curriculum in third grade is the study of our National Parks as a subtopic of our study of Fifty States.   Alaska is the home to 15 national parks, preserves, monuments and historic parks.  The Park Service in Alaska also oversees 49 National Historic Landmarks and 16 …

The Great States Parade

“Fifty Nifty United States, From thirteen original colonies, Fifty nifty stars in the flag, That billow so beautifully in the breeze, Each individual state contributes a quality that is great….” This song has been stuck in my head for nearly a month now as we have been working on our Fifty States unit.  If you …

Balto Lives WHERE?

Did you know that Balto currently resides in the Cleveland Museum of Natural History? After the famous Serum Run, Balto quickly achieved hero status and traveled all over North America.  Eventually Balto and his teammates were sold to a vaudeville show owner in California where they were mistreated.  George Kimble, a businessman from Cleveland discovered …

The Adventures of the Traveling Quilt

We have been fortunate enough to host one of the Iditarod Traveling Quilts for the first month of school.  The Traveling Quilt program began when the first quilt was created in 2005 and since then has grown to 11 quilts that zig zag the world bringing the race and its ideals to more than one …

Timing It All Out

We have officially begun our school year in 3A!  Here are some pictures of my final classroom set up… I hope you enjoy them!   This week we will be taking a look at timelines.  I have a timeline hanging in the classroom that takes up three walls of the room.  I introduce the idea …

Winning Dog Care

When the mushers begin arriving in Nome at the finish of any race, there is a lot of focus on the race winner and who’s coming in next at the finish chute on Front Street. But, in the dog lot, where teams rest, eat, and wait for their airplane rides home, another winner is being …

Spotlight on McGrath

McGrath is located where the Kuskokwim and Takotna rivers meet.  The population of the village is roughly 400. There are two stores along with a restaurant. The school in McGrath has nearly 50 students. The village has a public library, a regional health clinic and an air strip. A person traveling to or from McGrath would go …

Dropped Dogs Are…

  supervised, examined, kept safe, fed, loved on, and are the dogs that mushers drop from their teams when they arrive in checkpoints along the race. A dog can be dropped for a number of reasons–perhaps it has a sore wrist or shoulder, perhaps it isn’t feeling 100 %, perhaps it is running a temperature, …