Photo Credit- Terrie Hanke
September is upon us, and we all know that means two things: school has started, AND we are one month closer to Iditarod 2026! As those young ones arrive back in your classrooms, I hope you all have the best start to the year. We all know “retraining” the little pups to “sit, stay, and learn all day” can be a challenge to say the least. My hope is that September’s lesson is engaging for them and one that gets those young minds thinking.
The lesson is titled, “Doggone Dogs” Blocks and it incorporates beginning math skills such as more, fewer, less, add, subtract, etc. as well as combining a read aloud story to get them excited. Younger students may be introduced to these key words for the first time, while more experienced students can embrace it as a review of prior knowledge. Either way, it could be adapted to whatever best fits your teaching situation. You can use it now by focusing on dogs in general, because what kiddo doesn’t love dogs, right? You can also use it closer to March and focus on Iditarod sled dogs specifically. The choice is yours!
My August post explained that each lesson would also come with a “Trail Techy” idea to bring computer science and coding to life in the classroom, no matter how young your students are. With advancing technology in our world this becomes more crucial to education every day. You don’t even need to have a variety of technology for students to learn computer coding! I am excited to share with you both “online” as well as “unplugged” ideas to get you started!
Your “Trail Techy” idea for this month will get students thinking about some simple coding vocabulary terms and then how they transfer into an “unplugged” computer science dog activity. Introducing these words to students and using them in your daily vocabulary will work wonders in their understanding of the concepts.
Command- a single instruction given to the computer
Practice command by having students give you a single direction to follow, just like they would give a dog a command.
Code- instructions you give the computer to follow
Let students become the computer and you give them a “piece of code” to follow such as: walk backward 3 steps, flap your arms like a bird, or give your table buddy a high-5.
Program- a complete set of code that does something
Pull it all together by having your students be a sled dog. Give them a program set of 2-3 commands which they will follow in order. Not only have they had fun being “dogs” but they just improved in following multi-step directions and succeeded at a coding activity! They just became the computer and completed your code! They could now create sets of code for each other to follow, incorporate the creation of picture directions for younger students, and even writing skills for older students. The possibilities for these three computer science words are endless!
September-Iditarod Lesson Plan.docx-2
