The information on this site serves as information about the 2007 Summer Conference for Educators, held in Alaska June 24 - 30. Read the segments in the menu from MAY AND JUNE to learn about the conference. Read the additional blog postings and comments to learn about the the experiences that have led each participant to ways of enriching their curriculum by using Iditarod as a theme in classroom instruction.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Quilts, rookie reports, and "large"times

Hi, all--
I can't draw worth a lick (Tee will understand that phrase), so I was really worried about making my quilt square for our school's quilts. My sister, a teacher elsewhere in NC, told me about quilt squares that will go through the computer printer. It's sold in the quilting department of craft/fabric stores, and has a peel-off paper backing. I printed wordart, photographs, an outline map, and text on my square.

Last week my 6th graders were working with 3rd and 1st person point of view and needed more practice changing 3rd person to 1st person. I thought of my rookie report on Rohn Buser. Kids got copies of it, were interested in it, I popped it up on the screen via projector to my computer, used the Track Changes tool to edit it as they told me the changes to make Rohn the narrator of his report. (Make the font larger so they can easily see it.) I printed wallet size color photos of the pic I had taken of Rohn and his dad, and each student got one to keep. They noticed Martin's finger, so I had them predict why part of it was missing, asked them what clues and prior knowledge they used to make the prediction, told them the story of the accident, and then we talked about revising predictions.

Tee and everyone--last Friday night I was at our high school football game, our town's main entertainment, and a friend asked me if my college sophomore daughter was having at large time at NC State. Thought of you, Tee! And yes, she is having a large time! Go, Wolfpack!

Martha

Friday, September 21, 2007

Read-a-thon

Hi, to all my summer conference friends! The school year has gotten off to a good start for Crickett and myself, except that, even though her room is only 4 doors away, and the teacher's lounge is across the hall - I almost never see her during the day! Crazy busy!

I have had to decide to scale back some of my overly ambitious plans for the year. I've had some heavy-duty family responsibilities come up, so the quilt and dolls for the Susan Butcher Family Center have been pushed to the back burner. I have come up with another idea, however, and I'm hoping that maybe some of you will want to join me in this worthy cause.

I am hoping to organize a read-a-thon during the Iditarod. The plan is that students collect pledges for every minute or page (haven't decided yet) they read during the race. The money collected would be donated to the center. I have heard from Shelley Gill (through a friend of hers) that the center is needing cash donations. One of the elementary schools in our district did a read-a-thon last year just to raise funds for their bookroom and they made $10,000. That's pretty powerful cash for an elementary school. I don't know that our school would be that successful, but I would hope that we could raise some decent money. I will be putting together pledge kits with information about the family center and the race. I will be happy to share anything I put together. I think it is so important to teach our kids to be giving and I think the kids will be motivated by the race and the cause.

If you have ideas about how this might work or any other ideas to help out the center, please e-mail me or post here. I'll post more info as it becomes available.

Hope your year is going well - we're almost at midquarter - can't believe it. My kids have almost finished their quilt squares for Jane's project. They are so excited to have that connection with Alaska (their eyes get so big when they talk about Alaska!).

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Into the Wild

Hey Iditarod Friends,
Have any of you read the book Into the Wild? It is coming out as a movie in the next week or so or maybe the weekend. I think it is going to be awesome as it is about a young man who dropped everthing to go to Alaska by way of foot. He made it and nearly survived but died. I hope you can catch the movie I am or read the true story.
Hope all is well with everyone.

Tee

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Spelling Words

Hello everyone,

I'm sharing a list of spelling words I brainstormed for my colleagues at school to use this year. It certainly isn't comprehensive, but it's a start. The way they'll fit into my spelling program is I will use them as examples of words that use certain spelling patterns.

Is everyone having a good year? Quilt contact information will be coming soon. Go ahead and get started on those squares!

Jane


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