What Next? Iditarod Summer Extension

Now that the 2008 Iditarod has ended, you and your class might be thinking, what next?

My class has already made plans for a summer extension involving the Iditarod Mushers, geography and letter writing. Since I have my class for two years, our Iditarod Adventure will continue into next year. Even if you won't have your same class next fall, you can use our activity and have your new class in the fall map the results.

After dressing our mushers for the Iditarod, we realized that the mushers were a lot like Flat Stanley, a character from a book. So we decided, why not send our mushers out all over the world on summer trips. Our goal is to continue our Iditarod adventure while incorporating some geography and letter writing.

We will send our mushers out to "host families" who will take pictures with the musher, write letters and send them back to our class. When the mushers return, in the fall we will map where the mushers are originally from, where they have traveled and share the letters and adventures.

Since our original mushers were dressed for sub-zero temperatures, we decided that we'd need to change their outfits to match the warmer weather. Once they were dressed for their journeys we wrote some letters to introduce them to their host families. We will also write letters to the real mushers to tell them about our project and ask them questions about what they do during the summer.

Watch for our pictures and maps in the fall. We'll send them to Diane to be posted on the Iditarod website. If you are interested in sending mushers to us to vacation in Colorado or, if you are interested in hosting some of our musher, please contact me at lnakauchi@friendsschoolboulder.org.