Every March in Alaska, mushers and their dogs gather in Anchorage to begin an 1,150 mile race to Nome - its the Iditarod, also knows as the "Last Great Race on Earth". In 2007, my first grade class also "raced" the Iditarod by reading. Every page read was equivalent to one mile travelled, and were they ever motivated to cover some mileage! (Coincidentally, the race occurred at the same time as our school's annual reading competition, so they had even more reason to read lots of pages!)
We also included the previous year's Iditarod winner, Jeff King, to the race to see if we could beat him to the finish line; we checked his progress daily via the official Iditarod web site. To familiarize the kids with Jeff King, I made a poster with photos and descriptions of him and his dogs (kids at this age love anything having to do with animals!). I also had the kids write a paragraph about themselves and made a poster of our team too! We included their name, age, height, hobbies, and favorite books.
I love to teach thematically - and my school at the time gave teachers the freedom to do so as long as we covered the state standards - so I worked in as many activities as I could that were Iditarod themed. I did read-alouds about famous sled dogs (Akiak and Togo), we made "Gorp" (a trail mix that mushers eat on the trail), studied the various breeds of sled dogs and wrote about our own fictional sled dog teams, and read and wrote Iditarod poems.
The kids came up with some fantastic acrostic poems using the word IDITAROD. I showed them a few samples that had been written by other kids, we did one together as a class, and then each student wrote one of his or her own. By that time they were experts on the race and Iditarod vocabulary, so it all came together rather easily. I was really pleased with the results - here are a few:
IDITAROD by B.D.
I think it is the best race ever
Dogs do tricks
I hope we win the money
Togo is the best dog ever
Akiak is a sled dog
Race Jeff King to the finish
On the trail
Do you think we will win?
IDITAROD by K.R.
I love the Iditarod
Dogs are cool to me
I think that Jeff King is cool
The class is reading to beat Jeff King
Are people clapping?
Race is hard
Or we are helping
Does he win all the time?
They really loved every minute of this unit, as did I. Not all students finished the race, but I gave them a small prize for every checkpoint they reached (bookmarks, stickers, pencils etc.) and made a big deal of their personal achievements!
For teachers:
Official Iditarod Site for Teachers
ABC's of the Iditarod
Education World - Iditarod Lesson Planning
Reading A-Z: The Jr. Iditarod (Level U)
Interactive Unit Study: Iditarod 2007
On the wall outside our classroom, I created a large butcher paper poster listing each of the Iditarod checkpoints. Each student's name was affixed at the starting point, and as they read pages, they moved their names along the board.
(Student faces and names have been removed from these photos so I could share what the posters looked like).
We also included the previous year's Iditarod winner, Jeff King, to the race to see if we could beat him to the finish line; we checked his progress daily via the official Iditarod web site. To familiarize the kids with Jeff King, I made a poster with photos and descriptions of him and his dogs (kids at this age love anything having to do with animals!). I also had the kids write a paragraph about themselves and made a poster of our team too! We included their name, age, height, hobbies, and favorite books.
I love to teach thematically - and my school at the time gave teachers the freedom to do so as long as we covered the state standards - so I worked in as many activities as I could that were Iditarod themed. I did read-alouds about famous sled dogs (Akiak and Togo), we made "Gorp" (a trail mix that mushers eat on the trail), studied the various breeds of sled dogs and wrote about our own fictional sled dog teams, and read and wrote Iditarod poems.
The kids came up with some fantastic acrostic poems using the word IDITAROD. I showed them a few samples that had been written by other kids, we did one together as a class, and then each student wrote one of his or her own. By that time they were experts on the race and Iditarod vocabulary, so it all came together rather easily. I was really pleased with the results - here are a few:
IDITAROD by B.D.
I think it is the best race ever
Dogs do tricks
I hope we win the money
Togo is the best dog ever
Akiak is a sled dog
Race Jeff King to the finish
On the trail
Do you think we will win?
IDITAROD by K.R.
I love the Iditarod
Dogs are cool to me
I think that Jeff King is cool
The class is reading to beat Jeff King
Are people clapping?
Race is hard
Or we are helping
Does he win all the time?
They really loved every minute of this unit, as did I. Not all students finished the race, but I gave them a small prize for every checkpoint they reached (bookmarks, stickers, pencils etc.) and made a big deal of their personal achievements!
For teachers:
Official Iditarod Site for Teachers
ABC's of the Iditarod
Education World - Iditarod Lesson Planning
Reading A-Z: The Jr. Iditarod (Level U)
Interactive Unit Study: Iditarod 2007
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