Numbers.  The bottom line.  In the recent presidential election the winner was decided by who had the most votes.  The more dogs you have at the end of the race, the higher you are likely to finish.  Last Sunday in the Super Bowl, there were all kinds of numbers given, first downs, completed passes, etc, but the bottom line, the numbers that decide which team won the game, are the ones on the scoreboard, 27-23.  The high score wins.  At this point in my cancer treatment I am playing a numbers game too, and again the high score wins.  The higher my white and red blood cell counts are, the healthier I am.  Currently my counts are so low that I cannot eat fresh fruits or vegetables for fear that some germ may not get washed off and attack my weakened immune system.  I am still fatigued by anemia.  My hope and prayer is that my numbers will steadily increase-which they are doing!-to the point that I am healthy enough to board that plane to Alaska on February 24.  The bottom line is in the numbers.

So with all the ways numbers affect our lives I thought it was time to post a few number lessons.  One lesson is for building up the excitement of The Last Great Race on Earth by counting down the days until Iditarod XXXVII.  The second is a fun lesson on learning to skip count by 5’s using dog bones and tally marks.  And in the third lesson students will sort dog bones by color, demonstrate 1-1 correspondence in counting, and show conceptual understanding of the terms more, less, and equal.  Since my last message, I did post a lesson on phonological awareness using the book, Sled Dogs Run, by Jonathan London with illustrations by Jon Van Zyle.  The teacher’s guide that accompanies the lesson is filled with ideas that can be used for transition times, dismissal, as well as small and whole group instruction.  I hope you can add these lessons to your Iditarod studies.  Happy Trails!