It’s after Labor Day and we’re all back in school. I hope you’ve found ways to use the clipart and bookmarks in your classrooms or you have plans to use them during the year.

I‘ve had another remarkable Iditarod experience since school began that I’ll share with you. About two weeks ago, my classroom phone rang, and the caller was a parent of a student at another school in my school system. She had read an article about me in my position as the Target® 2011 Iditarod Teacher on the Trail™ in a school system publication and was excited to contact me about her family’s history of racing Siberian huskies when they lived in Iowa. The most wonderful part of the call, though, was finding out they were selling a dog sled, only 20 minutes away from me! Last Saturday I picked up my “new” old sled, harnesses, and a gangline as well as some great stories of their dogs and running dog days. And, I got a super lead on the sled’s  history which I’m working to confirm.

Iditarod has provided unexpected opportunities for me over the years; where I least expect a connection, there is one. Who would have thought that in Cabarrus (say kuh bear us) County, North Carolina I’d have a chance to buy a dog sled with some really remarkable history connected to Alaska? It’s like going on a treasure hunt. I bet that you will have remarkable experiences in your classrooms when you use Iditarod as a teaching tool, too.

Here are some lesson ideas my sled generated. I can’t wait to hear about the activities and results you get when you try these.

1. Use the photo of the sled next to the Toyota Prius as a writing prompt.  Compare and contrast the two types of transportation, their size, their purpose, their use, where they are used; create an analogy between the dogpowered transportation and the mechanical energy saving transportation; write a dialogue between the sled and the car; choose either the sled or the car and write about why it is a superior form of transportation; write about what you can do with the sled that you can’t do with the car.
2. Write a story from the sled’s point of view.
3. Write about a race the sled was in.
4. Persuade someone to buy this sled with an illustrated advertisement.
5. Build your own small scale sled using popsicle sticks.
6. Use a computer program to design your sled.
7. Create an illustration of the sled and team using an art technique such as mosaic, pencil, or collage.
8. Write a fable about the sled and the car. (This reminds me of The Tortoise and the Hare fable.)

Mushing on,

Martha