Today marked the beginning of the official start to the 2013 Iditarod! Last year the Iditarod came through Galena and I was homeschooling the girls so for about 3 weeks before the Iditarod we did a detailed study on the history of the Iditarod and mushing in Alaska. We finished the study by making an Iditarod diorama. If you are looking for any ideas on teaching about the Iditarod, I have quite a few from last year and feel free to use the diorama idea. I thought I would show a few pictures as it was a great project and the girls had a blast doing it!
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Aubrey painting the background on her box.
She decided to paint the Northern Lights on the box so the swirls of green, red, and purple you see are the Northern Lights. The white dots are stars and the musher and his dogs are running on the Yukon River.
We didn't have very many toy dogs so Aubrey decided she wanted to make some out of clay. She
molded them and painted them (except for the lead dog). I love the little booties she painted on them.
She also made the musher out of clay. The wood sled is made
out of Popsicle sticks. I got the idea for the sled from here.
Mackenzie painting her background on the box.
Mackenzie made her scene to be a mountain scene with
snow falling and the musher resting in his tent along the trail.
Mackenzie didn't feel like making dogs from clay so she used one toy dog to pull the sled.
Do you like the farmer musher in the tent? We didn't have very many toy people so we used a farmer
guy that goes with the girls farm set. Mackenzie wanted a fire so Mom had to help with building it.
The girls played with these for a long time. I finally had to throw them away shortly before this Christmas as everything was falling apart. Looking at these pictures makes me miss having the girls around all day especially when we did fun projects like this!
Good luck 2013 Iditarod contestants. We will enjoy keeping track of the race!