Lesson Plan Summary: This plan gives direction in sharing the story of Raven, the trickster-hero from the Native Alaskan oral tradition.
Download Lesson Plan: Legends: Raven…A Trickster Tale From The Pacific Northwest
Lesson Plan Summary: This lesson provides a great recipe for making your very own dog bone cookies!
Download Lesson Plan: Cathy’s Canine Treats
Summary: Teachers and students can make their own model of a volcano following this simple plan.
Download Lesson Plan: Make a Volcano!
Summary: In this lesson students will learn to skip count by fives using tally marks and dog bones.
Download Lesson Plan: Dog Bone Tally
Download Lesson Plan Supplement: Tally Sheet
Summary: Students will sort dog bones by color, demonstrate 1-1 correspondence, and show conceptual understanding of the terms more, less, and equal in this lesson.
Download Lesson Plan: Sort and Count Dog Bones
Summary: This lesson(s) will focus on the third tenet of the acronym RACE, compassion. Through song, reading, video, discussion, drama, and a service project students will identify and demonstrate compassion.
Download Lesson Plan: Compassion – Character Education
Download Lesson Supplement: Compassion Song
Summary: This lesson(s) will focus on the fourth tenet of the acronym RACE, excellence. Through song, reading, video, discussion, and drama students will identify and demonstrate personal excellence.
Download Lesson Plan: Personal Excellence – Character Education
Download Lesson Supplement: Personal Excellence Song
Summary: Here are the lyrics to The Iditarod Checkpoint Song. Write them on a song chart or overhead transparency to help students learn the names of the checkpoints as they sing aong with the music. (See the link on the left hand menu bar for the music.)
Download Lesson Plan: The Iditarod Checkpoint Song
Summary: 16 husky number cards help students learn number order and one-to-one correspondence. The accompanying songs teach adding and taking away one.
Download Lesson Plan: Husky Number Cards
Download Lesson Supplement: Husky Take Away Song
Download Lesson Supplement: Husky Plus One Song
Summary: This is a fun and easy daily station where students can practice counting and writing numbers independently.
Download Lesson Plan: Dog Bone Count
Download Lesson Plan: Don’t Forget the Bag Lesson Plan
Download Lesson Supplement: Cathy’s Presentation Notes
Download Lesson Supplement: Flyer to be sent home
Summary: Students will create their own 12″ x 12″ Alaskan quilt.
Summary: Readers Theater is the reading of a text in a play-like fashion. I have written two scripts. The first script is geared towards pre-readers. The teacher reads the portion of the script that movesthe story, and students respond with a refrain or simple lines that are repetitive and easy to learn. The second script is for written for first and second grade students. Although props and costumes can be involved in an elaborate Readers Theater, most involve the children simply reading the text with good fluency. By performing a Readers Theater, students are given an excellent reason to read, reread, and reread a text; they are practicing for a performance.
Summary: After reading Polar Bears by Gail Gibbons students will complete an ABC or 123 dot-to-dot of a polar bear. The teacher will read the Polar Bear Fact sheet and students willpoint to the corresponding physical feature on their completed dot-to-dot polar bear. For example, when the teacher reads the fact, “Polar bears have small ears so they won’t freeze.” Students point to the ear on their picture. After all the facts have been read, students watch the National Geographic Video. The teacher then introduces the polar bear song to the children.
Summary: During the study of Alaska’s Arctic animals and where they live students will be able to tell the teacher one cold fact about each animal. A cold fact is anything that tells how these animals survive in such a harsh environment. Two facts, for example, that help the willow ptarmigan survive are that he turns white in the winter (his camouflage) and that he grows extra feathers in the winter, even on his feet (for warmth). This information is reviewed and reinforced by playing the Arctic Animal Memory Game and Arctic Animal Bingo.
Summary: Students will look for red, yellow, blue and green toothpicks distributed in a grassy area and discover that the green toothpicks are more difficult to find because they are the color of their surroundings.
Summary: After conducting the toothpick experiment and reading Gone Again Ptarmigan students will see in this art activity how important camouflage is to Alaska’s state bird, the willow ptarmigan and other Arctic animals. (Other Arctic animals that change their coats or feathers with the season are the Arctic fox, the short-tailed weasel (known as ermine in their winter coats), the snowy owl, and the snowshoe hare. Polar bears keep their camouflage all year long!)
Summary: Students will learn about the Iditarod by singing and learning a finger play that can also be dramatized.
Summary: Students demonstrate understanding of an area that you are emphasizing in your instruction by circling or underlining on the “Five Little Huskies” handout. For example, students can circle all the capital letters in the poem.
