Iditarod News

The Iditarod is wrapping up in Nome, Alaska. My prediction of Lance Mackey winning the race was correct. He was in the lead for several days and ending up winning by several hours over the second place musher. Jacob's musher, Mitch Seavy, was the winner in our class. He came in fourth place. We are still waiting for several mushers to finish. The Red Lantern Award is given to the last musher to cross the finish line. This award is given because just finishing the race is a great accomplishment, no matter what place you finish in. I think that is an important message for us all to keep in mind. We also read the book: The Iditarod - The Greatest Win Ever. The students enjoyed reading about Kara, a fictional character, and her ordeal through out the race. Next week, we will wrap up our Iditarod unit with a Jeopardy game and by completing our classroom ABC Iditarod book.

Iditarod Update

Hi, kids! I'm sending this post to you over the weekend to keep you up to date on the race. Lance Makey has been in first place all day. He checked out of Eagle Island at 7:48 pm our time (which is 3:48 in Alaska). There are currently 4 other mushers in Eagle Island. Makena's musher, Mitch Seavy, is currently the highest placed musher that anyone from our class is following. He is in 5th place. If I was a betting person, I'd be placing my money on Lance Makey. He just dropped his first dog today. Lance also won $3,500 for being the first musher to the Yukon. This is in addition to the $3,000 he won just a couple of days ago. I bet he can buy a lot of dog food with his winnings. Be sure to be checking the current standings. The race will be over in just a few days.

Iditarod Musher Journals

We have been writing in our musher journals each day telling all about what is happening to our musher out on the Iditarod Trail. The students are so excited when I pass out the updates each day. I will be posting some of the journal entries. Here is Danielle's journal entry:

March 12, 2009
Yesterday, we checked in at Nikolai at 18:08, 0r 6:08, and stayed eight hours and fourteen minutes. While we were there, I decided to change the team arrangements a bit. Stamp and Montana, the swing dogs, weren't working well together, so I switched Stamp with Oatmeal, one of the team dogs. Today we left at 2:22 and now we have been on the trail for eighteen hours and 19 minutes. We are traveling at 4.09 m.p.h. and I still have 16 dogs. We are on our way to McGrath, 54 miles from Nikolai. We moved back one place in the race and now we are in 58th place. I hope we move up farther in the race by at least 4 places by tomorrow. It is cold out here, but not cold enough to make me scratch.
Musher: Jen Seavy

March Happenings

March is a very busy month in Room 202. On Monday, March 16th, we will begin the PSSA test. We have been working very hard to prepare for these tests. Please be sure your child is well rested and eats a good breakfast.

March 17th is Go for the Greens Day where children are encouraged to eat vegetables. We will be snacking on fresh veggies that day here at school. If you would like to send in vegetables with your child for a class snack, please let me know. We will also be participating in a Produce Pentathalon next week. Your child should have brought home a letter explaining this and coupons. Each day next week that your child eats fruit or vegetables at home, please fill in a coupon and send it back with your child. If your child returns all 5 coupons, they will be treated to a special prize.

We are still following the Iditarod. Each day, students are writing in their musher journals. They are recording what is happening to their musher out on the trail. The students have been very excited about this. They can't wait until I pass out the current race standings each day. I predict that the winner will arrive in Nome sometime on March 17th or March 18th. Be sure to check out www.iditarod.com to stay up to date on all the happenings.

The Last Great Race

We have just kicked off a unit on the Iditarod. What is the Iditarod you ask? It is a 1,150 mile sled dog race from Anchorage to Nome. The students have all chosen a musher to follow throughout the race. The race begins tommorrow in Anchorage. We will be closely following the race to see how our mushers are performing. The students will be keeping a journal on their musher. Log on to www.iditarod.com to see how the race is progressing and to learn all about the race. Check back here to see what Room 202 is doing with the Iditarod.

Blog confusion

For those of you who subscribe to my blog, you were sent an update to my blog about an animal report. This post is from last school year. I do not know why you received this as an update. I sorry for any confusion this caused. I hope I can find out why so we don't have this confusion again. We will be doing animal reports this spring, but we haven't started them at all yet. So if your child told you they have no idea about an animal report, they truely had "no idea."

Ellis Island link

For some reason, I am having difficulty adding the Ellis Island link under helpful websites. Here is the link: http://www.tenement.org/immigrate/ . Be sure to try out this really cool websit to learn all about immigrating to America and starting a new life.