Reading Through the Iditarod

On March 28th students at Charlevoix Elementary School realized the benefits of setting a goal and reaching it. As early as the end of February, students began studying the Iditarod in library special through reading fiction and nonfiction books about sled dogs, mushers and mushing, the Iditarod and the famous 1925 Serum Run in Alaska. They also accessed information from various sled dog and Iditarod web sites plugging that information into specially designed work sheets. They used the video clips at Iditarod Insider which was made available to them through a grant from the Charlevoix Enrichment Foundation. Each class selected a musher which they followed during the Iditarod this year. And the students read and read and read as evidenced by the paw prints spanning all around the school. Each paw print represents 100 minutes of reading. They could also use this year a very special March Is Reading month calendar to get extra minutes by doing activities that focused on reading. Their goal of reading 113,100 minutes (or 1,131 miles which is the distance of the Iditarod) was met. And their reward was a visit from two mushers, Tasha and Ed Stielstra from Nature’s Kennel in McMillan, Michigan. Tasha Stielstra is a champion musher having won the UP 200 in 2006. Ed has completed the Iditarod on three occasions. Students attended an assembly in the morning and in the afternoon they were treated to a demonstration of dogs pulling a sled. Afterward the students were allowed to pet all 18 dogs. But the best part of all was the top readers in each grade were pulled in a dog sled by Mr. Swenor dressed up in a Scooby-Doo costume.