Watch the website all week for updates from the Teacher’s Conference!

Martha Dobson, Blynne Froke, and Sally Simon have begun their activities and interviews as a part of the selection process for the Target® 2011 Iditarod Teacher on the Trail™.  Over the next several weeks, this website will feature articles by the finalists.   The articles will highlight the week’s events and serve as a resource for educators around the world.  Click here to read the current articles.

Herb Brambley, Target® 2010 Teacher on the Trail™ will be posting daily updates sharing his experiences and observations from now through the end of the 2010 Iditarod.  Click here to read Herb’s journal.

The K9 Journalists, Zuma, Gypsy, Libby, and Sanka W. Dog will be providing stories and articles about the race and related topics.  Learn about the Iditarod Trail and Alaska.  Keep up on the race news. Meet Authors.  Meet Fur Friends.  Chat with the K9 Journalists.   Don’t miss a minute of the race adventure at Zuma’s Paw Prints.

The Iditarod is about to begin.  This is your website.  Race coverage and teaching activities found at this site will help your students on the Trail to academic success!

Dear Iditarod Helpers,

We realize that we have (will) miss(ed) the deadline to send a letter on the trail, (Leo’s Trail Mail project) however I wanted the mushers to know that our class will be following the race this year very closely and tracking the dogsled teams on a map we will have posted in our classroom.  The children and I are very excited to be participating  in this event.  We hope, at some point, someone on a team will give a shout out to us,  22 children at our school in Medina, Ohio.   We would be happy to hear from you.

Thank-you and good luck to all the dog-sled teams and everyone else who helps with this race.

Medina, Ohio is located about 30miles south of Cleveland, where Balto was displayed at The Natural History Museum.

Thank-you

Mrs. Jane Unsdorfer

*If you are an Iditarod musher or a volunteer and would like to respond to this letter, click here to have your email forwarded.

Here are things you can do:

1.  Send an email to us and we’ll post some of them at the appropriate place on the website.  Click here to email us.

2.  Send letters to mushers AFTER  you have read the lesson plan and the important article about the project.

3.  Read Zuma’s Paw Prints.  Meet the K-9 Team of Reporters.  Read great articles! Be among the hundreds and hundreds of students who read about the race at this section of our site.   Leave comments for our reporters or send an email.  If for some reason this site is blocked at your school, contact your technology department and ask to have it unblocked.  One look at the site and they’ll know that this is an awesome reading and writing project for your students.   Click here to go to Zuma’s Paw Prints.

4. Visit the Target® Iditarod Teacher on the Trail^TM section of the website.  Meet our teacher, find lesson plans, email our teacher, and during the race, learn more about the checkpoints and mushers. Click here!

Have you wondered what it is like out on the Iditarod Trail?  Are you looking for pictures taken at the checkpoints? What do mushers do during the race?  What do volunteers do? What is a snow hook?  How do you go about training sled dogs?  What kind of goals do mushers set and how does that compare with the goals students set for themselves?  What are the meaning of certain Iditarod and mushing vocabulary words?  What is going on at Iditarod Headquarters?  Are you looking for an interesting read for your students?  Have you wondered how to get your students involved in writing?  Your answers await you at Zuma’s Paw Prints.

Zuma’s Paw Prints is your place on the website for your readers and your writers.  FOUR K-9 journalists, Zuma, Gypsy, Libby, and Sanka W. Dog write articles to provide you with news and information that your students can use.  Each journalist writes in a different style and for a different level of a reader or for a different purpose, making it possible for you to focus on the writing of one journalist— or all of them, depending on the needs and abilities of your students.  Students can comment back to the journalists at the blog site.  Zuma can still be emailed, too.

That is NOT ALL!

Watch for a special project for your students—-  soon to be announced on Zuma’s Paw Prints.   (Hint:  What can you do to help the local animal shelters in your community?)

Click on the scrapbook at Zuma’s Paw Prints to view pictures that you can use for educational purposes with your students.

If your school filters or blocks blogs, keep in mind that by asking your school’s technology department to view Zuma’s Paw Prints and requesting it to be unblocked, you often can get the site unblocked.  This has been the case for most schools who have contacted us.  Check with your technology department if you have trouble viewing Zuma’s Paw Prints or other areas of our website.

Zuma’s Paw Prints can play an important role in helping your students to be better readers and writers.  Make sure you check our information for teachers that is found at Zuma’s Paw Prints.  A message to teachers, provides you with tips and information.  Click here to read the message to teachers.

Visit Zuma’s  Paw Prints.   Click here.

The K-9 ‘reporting team’ recognizes that not all students read and write on the same level. So, Libby, writes about ‘little d’tails’ for the lower readers while Sanka writes to provide more in depth coverage and information for the higher level reader. Zuma and Gypsy write articles geared for the middle readers. Teachers choose the K-9 reporter or reporters that best meet the student’s needs. Depending on the classroom situation and time available, teachers can use the articles from the K-9 reporters accordingly.

Although Zuma and the K-9 reporters can still be emailed, students have discovered that it is more fun to leave comments and ask questions for the reporters. Along with comments or questions, students can post their poetry or other short stories on the blog, further expanding opportunities for students. The fun of comment boards is that not only does the reader gain information from the article written by the reporter, but the comments left at the end of the article provide additional reading and information for everyone. It is important for the teacher to encourage students to read the comments that follow articles. This helps students develop higher level thinking and reasoning skills as well as help them learn to ask better questions and seek more information because they are building their level of knowledge after reading questions, answers, and comments from other readers.

Often, comments and questions that have been left for the reporters become the topic for an article by one of the K-9 reporters, making Zuma’s Paw Prints, a reading source that has interesting articles with topics that come directly from our readers. We’d like to encourage classrooms to generate topics and ideas for our reporters. What do you want to read about? Let us know!

A few schools have filter systems in place that block blogs, making it difficult for students to access Zuma’s Paw Prints as well as Jon Little’s blog. We discovered however, that most schools were able to get these sections of our website ‘unblocked’ by making a request to their school’s technology department. We recommend that teachers work with their schools in the fall, to address issues concerning the blogs. Remember, if you can read Zuma but you can’t write to Zuma in the comment section due to your school’s filter, you can still email Zuma.

As the teacher, it might be necessary for you to help students learn to use the comment section of the blog and remind them to return to where they left their comment, to find a response. With time and practice, students will easily remember which article they left their comment at andback at the article for their comment and possible response from reporters. Not every comment gets a response because sometimes the comment is simply a comment that doesn’t require further response or information. Sometimes, the comment question is already answered in a previous comment from a student or classroom. The goal to enrich our learning is to help students ask new questions, expanding upon what is already on the written page, and taking us to the higher levels of learning and thinking.

Each comment made at the blog is held for approval before it posts. Remind students to be patient and wait for their comment to be posted before posting the same comment again. Remind them if their comment doesn’t show up the next day, it could have been a comment that has already been responded to or a comment that is grouped with another student’s comment.

Students should also remember to follow safety rules. They should be reminded to never give out their first and last name or give out their address. We can’t post comments that provide personal information about students.

We won’t post comments that have inappropriate statements, gibberish, or bad language. We want the readers to understand the comments and questions that students submit, so please encourage best writing skills and provide students with guidance so they learn to be good communicators.

Thousands of classrooms followed Zuma this year! It has been exciting for the K-9 reporters to introduce themselves to our readers through their articles. The comments and email that we have gotten was inspirational and encouraging! We are so glad that students are enjoying what they read and having fun with our reporters!

It is a good idea to introduce Zuma’s Paw Prints to your classrooms in the fall. Zuma’s Paw Prints is a year round source of information for you and your students. Teachers should look for the menu tab that provides helpful hints so expand student achievement and the use of the blog.
We know that when we switched from the old articles to the new format we took a few schools by surprise and that it isn’t always easy to change. As we grow and we attempt to do our job better, we thank you for your patience and your understanding. We know that as time goes on, you’ll find this section of the site as rewarding as ever and it will be an important part of your classroom routine. Zuma and the K-9 reporters are YOUR reporters and they are dedicated to sharing Iditarod with you.

We also hope you’ll leave comments at Zuma’s Blog to help us do our job even better. We’d like to hear your story ideas. We’d like to hear how you and your students use Zuma’s Paw Prints. We’d also like to hear how you and your students help make a difference in the world through any service learning projects that you may do.

Watch for a special announcement from Zuma and the K-9 reporters because they will be putting forth a challenge to classrooms around the world to help make the world a better place by getting involved in community projects. Examples include: helping out to raise funds for animal shelters, helping create safe places for pets and humans to interact, cleaning up the environment, and helping communities take better care of each other. We’d like to hear your ideas about these projects. Share what you do now and ideas you may have that will help us encourage classrooms around the world to get involved in service learning projects.

Be a part of Zuma’s team! We’d enjoy hearing from you and we look forward to next school year.

Visit Zuma’s Paw Prints by clicking here!

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