My bags are packed and I only have a few little odds and ends to take care of.  Last night I sewed my patch on the Teacher on the Trail sleeping bag.  Every teacher who has been selected for this position has a patch on the bag; along with mine, there are now a total of eleven.  The bag started its journey in Indiana (1999), then on to South Dakota (2000), Colorado (2001) to Missouri (2002), and then Oregon (2003).  The next year bag was in Minnesota (2004), then on to Massachusetts (2005), Wisconsin (2006), Florida (2007), Arizona (2008), and now to me in North Carolina (2009).  This sleeping bag has really moved around these United States! 

Here are two sleeping bag activities for your students.  1) Use the Internet and find out how many men and women have been Teacher on the Trail.  2) Using a map of the continental United States, color the states blue that have had a male TOTT.  Color the states pink who had a female TOTT.  3) Number the eleven states showing the sleeping bags journey, i.e. (1) Indiana.  4) Draw lines from the first state to the second, etc., until all eleven states have been connected.

Now the TOTT sleeping bag has been to these eleven states but its real duty is out on the Iditarod Trail during the Last Great Race on Earth. Wherever the teacher goes, so goes the sleeping bag.  At each checkpoint on the trail the teacher pulls it out of his/her duffel and looks for a place to sleep.  I’ll post pictures of the 2009 journey of the sleeping bag out on the trail.  I hope we find warm and cozy places to sleep!