RACE MORNING 2012!

My boys are too funny!  Ten o'clock this morning one of them settled himself into a comfortable spot at the top of our staircase with his book, saved just for the occasion, to begin his IditaRead 2012.  Yes, in case you are wondering, we do have normal furniture up here in Alaska, but for some reason unbeknownst to me my kids often choose to read in the oddest places.  Above mentioned son's twin brother at least took the time to snag himself a big bowl of Cheerios to snack on before grabbing the plank a couple steps lower than his sibling and immersing himself in his own read.


Especially exciting for my kids this year is the fact that the race runs through Galena, which is where our home school organization, IDEA, is based, through the Galena City School District.  Galena is an itty, bitty town of less than a thousand people, but which has one of the largest homeschool programs serving students all over Alaska.  So, as you read your way through Galena you can think about my kids' high school diplomas! 


For those of you unfamiliar with how the race is run, there are two routes, a northern route and a southern route.  The routes begin and end the same, but diverge in the center, taking a northern route in even years and a southern course in odd years.  This allows more villages a chance to participate.


I look forward to your comments as you share your IditaRead reading with us over on the"Checkpoints 2012" page.  During IditaRead we change our homeschool focus somewhat.  Although we are always whole book learners for the most part, we do use some workbooks, computer programs and the like on a regular basis.  All that goes out the window this week.  We do math each morning and then the rest of our day centers around whole book learning for all subjects, including science and history.  I read aloud to the kids, they read aloud to each other, they read aloud to me, they read silently.  The week after we will do some notebooking projects based on what we read the week before and some science experiments, but this week will be just for books!  Next week I will do a blog post and share some of what we read for IditaRead.