Iditarod Reading Event

Dear Families,

Welcome back to school!  I hope everyone had a restful break and had the opportunity to spend some fun time with friends and family. It was great to see the children again.  They all seemed ready and happy to be back at school, learning and playing together again.

I wanted to share some information regarding the Iditarod Reading Event that we do on Harmony for the month of March.  Traditionally, we follow the Iditarod Dog Sled Race in Alaska, and this year, it actually started today due to poor weather conditions.  We read some books on our team and watched a short documentary about the history behind this dog sled race.  We will continue to learn more about the race, the dogs and the mushers, in the weeks to come

The children will also have the opportunity to follow along the mushers and "complete" their own Iditarod race by completing reading logs at home.  Each reading log is worth one check-point along the trail.  I sent home a package with reading logs for the first week today so please look for it in your child's backpack.  Your child is encouraged to write about the book he/she read and fill out one book summary page each night.  Participation in the Iditarod Reading Event is voluntary.  If you wish to use the familiar reading log, please let me know, and I will send that home instead.  (You can also find it online, on the wiki, where all reading logs are linked, including the new Iditarod Book Summary page.  Click here.)

There are 26 check-points along the Iditarod Trail.  Your child will have a copy of the map in his/her book box here at school and we will check it off as reading logs are handed in here at school.  The children will earn a prize at the half-way point and another one for completing the entire race.  All children will also receive a special Iditarod bookmark. 

If your child wishes to start writing the logs tonight, please encourage him/her to read "just right" books and write complete sentences with capital letters, lower case letters, finger-spacing and periods where necessary.  We do not want the children to "rush" through the reading/writing to get to the finish line; rather, we hope your child will take the time to write neatly and really be thoughtful about the writing on each summary page.  I told the children, they can bring in their first log tomorrow and show me so they know better what to expect.

Lastly, we will also conduct a Kid Iditarod Race behind the school on March 30th, starting after recess/lunch.  Instead of Friday workshops for the month of March, the children will work in small groups to complete a series of engineering tasks relating to the Iditarod race, eventually culminating in our own "race" on the field.  I wanted to give you all a heads up.  I am also asking for parent volunteers to join us for this special afternoon.  We will have several check-points set up around the field and each team will have to go through these checkpoints and perform different tasks before continuing the race. I will send out more information as we approach the 30th but I hope by letting you know early, you might have more flexibility to join us.  Thank you so much for considering.