If you haven't seen the movie, Balto, I strongly recommend it because it is a heartwarming family movie. Balto is based on the true story of the 1925 Nome Serum Run. The town of Nome, Alaska was struck by a diphtheria epidemic and a dog sled relay delivered the necessary serum. The trail the dogs followed is part of the Iditarod Trail.
We borrowed the book, Mush, Across Alaska in the World's Longest Sled-Dog Race by Patricia Seibert from the library. Usually, we will read a book about a specific topic before watching a related movie, but in this case I thought the movie would peak their interest in the book. This was definitely the case! The book is a little wordy for R, but she was interested and listened to most of it. C enjoyed the book. He was particularly interested in learning that the gold-rush contributed to the outbreak of diphtheria in Nome because of the crowded, dirty shacks that were built by people hoping to get rich quick. C and R were both very interested in the details of the race.
C and R were very interested in the commands given to the dogs by the mushers (dog sled drivers), so we played a little game. We took turns being the musher and would call out commands to our "dogs".
"Mush" means start, "gee" means turn right, and "haw" means turn left. We had some fun with this, and it was a good way to work on "left" and "right". Why do kids love to pretend to be dogs? Surprisingly, C and R have not tried to teach our dog, Kelly, these commands yet. I'm sure they will though, and I'm sure that Kelly will look at them like they are crazy.
11 comments:
I love the word game! Sammy would have a blast with this! The movie sounds great!
My kids would love that game, they pretend to be dogs at least once a day!
I love R's dress - looks very pretty and comfy!
My daughter LOVED that movie when we saw it. She would call her little pretend animals Jenna and Balto. She still talks about it even though we saw it back in December and returned it to the library already.
Kids do love to pretend they are dogs - I'm sure my youngest two would get a kick out of the game.
Interestingly enough that's the same commands donkey drivers use.
We watched Iron Will, which I think is from the same race, on a mission trip and adopted the movie's motto as our own, "Run longer, sleep less." We added on, "Smell worse."
The game would be wildly popular here too.
How fun. I vaguely remember watching parts of Balto, and I agree that it's a good movie!
LOL about them being dogs. Abby does that all of the time. She'd love this game. Hmm, maybe I could use commands that mean clean up toys or get dressed?
Fun! I'll have to check out that movie. We haven't seen it yet.
What a fun lesson! Great way to make it come alive. I bet they will enjoy tracking the race.
LOL I love the dog mushing!!
I left you a little something on my blog - come see.
Boy I didn't realize I fell so far behind on my blogging. Sounds like some great fun studying Alaska. I think we better hold off on any stories about dogs pulling sleighs here, next thing I would know Selena would be trying to get our little guy to pull her around.
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