Journey North engages students in a global study of wildlife migration and seasonal change. K-12 students share their own field observations with classmates across North America. They track the coming of spring through the migration patterns of monarch butterflies, robins, hummingbirds, whooping cranes, gray whales, bald eagles, and other birds and mammals; the budding of plants; changing sunlight; and other natural events. Find migration maps, pictures, standards-based lesson plans, activities and information to help students make local observations and fit them into a global context. Widely considered a best-practices model for education, Journey North is the nation’s premiere “citizen science” project for children. The general public is welcome to participate.

It’s just GORGEOUS! Go read!

Going the regimented route didn’t work out for us … if I’m to be completely honest, it brought out the absolute WORST in me. I trashed my lesson plans and started on a clean slate. Marz and I played silly games, tackled the colouring books and chit chatted in the darkness after Bear and Dad had gone to sleep. We took out stacks upon stacks of books and we just read. It felt good reconnecting with my daughter.

I have decided to follow a more eclectic approach… something along the lines of the unit-study-five-in-a-row way with loads of good literature. So we make the rules up as we go along. So what? ;)

We did butterflies earlier this year, but I’ve decided to revisit this unit … this time remembering to breathe more!

Butterflies, Butterflies!

• Alan & Hui Meng’s Butterfly Life Cycle Photos
• Beal School’s Exploring Butterflies in Kindergarten
• Butterfly File Folder Game
• Butterfly & Moth Printouts @ Enchanted Learning
• DLTK’s Butterfly & Caterpillar Crafts
• First School’s Butterfly Pre-school Activities & Crafts
• Jenna’s Story – Caterpillar to Butterfly
• Kidzone’s Monarch Butterfly Picture Story
• Kidzone’s Online Butterfly Jigsaw
• Life Cycles – The Monarch Butterfly
• Monarch Butterfly Links
• NBII Children’s Butterfly Site
• Science Museum of Minnesota – Monarchs & Migration
• Star Tribune’s beautiful photographs of butterflies
• Yukon Butterflies

Books We Read

• “All Aboard Reading: Butterflies” by Emily Neye
• “Butterfly Battle” – The Magic School Bus
• “Charlie the Caterpillar” by Dom de Luise
• “DK Readers Level 1: Born to be a Butterfly” by Karen Wallace
• “How to Hide a Butterfly & Other Insects” by Ruth Heller
• “The Butterfly Life Cycle” from Enchanted Learning
• “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle (but of course *S*)
• “Where Butterflies Grow” by Joanne Ryder & Lynne Cherry

Random Crazy Stuff

• Pinned a filmy dupatta (that’s the large rectangular shawl that Indo-Pak women wear) on Ms M, gathered up the middle, fashioned huge butterfly wings and let her run about the house in her usual drama-mama fashion :)