Iditarod Unit

    My favorite reading unit of the year is when we study the Iditarod. The Iditarod is ran the first Saturday of March every year in Alaska from Anchorage to Nome. The 1,049 mile race is ran each year to commemorate the Serum Run of 1925.

   At the beginning of February, Ann Easter (a 7th grade Language Arts at Columbia Middle School) and I went on a great dog sledding adventure to Nature's Kennel in McMillian, Michigan. Ed and Tasha Stielstra own Nature's Kennel. Both of them have been racing dog sled teams for several years now. Tasha just returned from France, where she ran the Le Grande Odyssee. Tasha just recently the U.P. 200 in February. Ed will be running in the Iditarod which starts March 4th. Our class will be following his progress on our class map and developing a bar graph of his daily progress.

   Ann and I had a blast learning to dog sled. We met many new people and learned a lot about staying on the dog sled (Ann was much better at this than me). We also had an Iditarod experience when we had lots of snow and wind on the Sunday traveling back to the kennel. We came away with the utmost respect for the men and women who take the challenge to run in any dog sled race and the abilities to take care and love their dogs. Be sure to click the link below to see many pictures of our dog sled adventure at Nature's Kennel.

    This year my classroom will be reading Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner. Stone Fox is about little Willy and his dog's Searchlight quest to save the family farm by running in a dog sled race against an Indian by the name of Stone Fox. We will be doing many different activities with this unit. We will also be learning about the Iditarod and following Ed Stielstra's and Jeff King's progress on the Iditarod trail. Be sure to check back in the next few weeks to see what our classroom is learning about the Iditarod.

Nature's Kennel Winter Adventure Pictures	Teacher Resources