Butterfly's Journey through Migration

Grade level 1-3 Duration: over several days to a week

To motivate my students i will open a discussion about how butterflies must migrate to warmer climates. I will then elicit from my students where these Butterflies can go to continue their life cycles. I will list their predictions on a chart to use later in the lesson.

My main objective is to have my students write an informative/explanatory piece in which they give some facts about the journey the butterfly takes, and provide some sense of closure to their writing piece.They will also include details such as the geographical states and calculate the miles a butterfly migrates.

My procedure for the lesson starts after reviewing several key concepts in various resources over a period of two days.We share information gathered on the journey of butterflies. Using the information elicited from the students, a chart is then created. We also highlight the path a butterfly takes on a map of the United States. We name the states a butterfly may travel to reach either Mexico or the states traveled through to get to California.

As an extended lesson, we can calculate the total number of milage from state to state and create math word problems with the information. We can also color the states on a given map to indicate the path a butterfly travels in order to migrate.

Resources used:
Butterflies Great Migrations by Laura Marsh,
The Journey of the Monarch by Isabella Cummings,
Monarch Butterfly by Gail Gibbons,
Magnificent Monarchs by Linda Glaser
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/kids/animals-pets-kids/bugs-kids/butterflies-kids.html