                   
For more ideas
visit our 2006-2007
class project page
...and our
for individuals
and small groups
Track the monarchs and
cranes via
Track the cranes via
via WWF Canada
Please support
Please support Operation
Migration
Please support
World Wildlife Fund Canada
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Program Highlights
These
are the main elements of our school-wide migration tracking initiative:
CLUBS
Each club meets for 25 minutes, during a lunch hour, once a week.
-
Grade
1 and 2 students meet on Mondays. Grade 5-6 helpers assist with the Grade
1/2's.
-
Grade
3 students meet on Wednesdays.
-
Grade
4 student meet on Fridays.
Students
in the clubs begin each weekly meeting discussing the latest migration
developments (as depicted on the monarch, crane and bear tracking maps).
They spend the balance of their time on computers in our school library,
being guided through some of the week's migration highlights. Some
weeks, they also engage in craft activities, such as creation of
symbolic monarchs and crane sculptures. See the "Crafts"
section of this web page for more details.
ENRICHMENT GROUPS
Enrichment groups, for gifted and highly-talented students, meet
for 40 minutes during class time, once a week.
-
There
are five Grade 3 students in my Tuesday group
-
There
are five Grade 5-8 students in my Thursday group
-
These
students have enrichment folders containing information sheets and
booklets from the Journey
North website, plus journal pages, venn diagrams and maps on
which to record their tracking and research findings.
Each
week, enrichment students will spend about 15 minutes engaged in a
discussion about a particular aspect of the migrations, and about recent
changes on the monarch and crane tracking maps. Then, they spend
the balance of their 40 minute session on the computers, reading the
latest Journey
North, Operation
Migration and Polar
Bear Tracker news reports and working on journaling questions.
These students take their enrichment folders back to class with them, so
they can engage in further studies, on their own, throughout the week.
TAKE-HOME BOOKLETS
Literacy is a HUGE focus at Rama Central P.S. so, each of the first six
weeks of club and enrichment group meetings, students are given an
information booklet about monarchs and one about cranes to take
home. These booklets are downloadable pdfs from the Journey
North educational website. Take-home booklets are
duplicated onto newsprint, using our Risograph machine. This is
much cheaper than photocopying onto regular paper.
Having
students take information booklets home, to share them with their
parents/siblings and to keep in their home libraries, is a great way to
inspire interest and conservation-minded attitudes at home.
Another way to accomplish this goal, would be to run off less booklets,
and have students take turns borrowing them, for home
reading.
"HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENTS"
Each week, students are asked to reflect on an aspect of the migrations
and come to the next meeting with ideas to share with the group.
CIRCULATION OF BOOKLETS VIA CLASSROOM LIBRARIES
The club/group staff advisor printed single, colour copies of all the Journey
North crane booklets and all the "basics" and
fall/winter/Mexico monarch
booklets onto card stock. These were arranged acrylic
racks and put on display in the school library for two weeks.
After that, these display racks were sent on tour to club members'
classrooms, to become part of classroom libraries for a week.
Through the circulation of booklets between classes, non-club/enrichment
students are given an opportunity to learn about the migrations, too.
PUBLICLY-ACCESSIBLE TRACKING BOARD
Our tracking boards are located in a very public location, in
the school library, to provide maximum exposure to all students.
The
monarch tracking map is updated weekly, with comments about sightings
from the latest monarch
news report, (as per the method suggested in Journey
North's fall monarch "make a map" section). We
also add a hard copy of the latest roost-sightings
map to the display. All of the weekly roost maps are being
posted, in a line, across the bottom of the monarch bulletin board, so
students can easily review their progress, week-by-week.
The
crane tracking area is updated daily, throughout their southbound
migration. We read the latest crane
news report, record daily flight distances and no-fly days on a
calendar, update the cranes' current location on their large tracking
map, and record the total distance flown and distance still to fly on a
sign.
The
Polar Bear tracking area is updated weekly. Each bear's currently
location is transferred from the online tracking map to a large,
laminated map of Canada, on our tracking board. Each bear's travel
route, to date, is indicated on the map using an acetate marker.
NEWS REPORT BINDERS
In order to make migration news accessible to all students at our
school, binders that house the crane
news reports, monarch
news reports and Polar
Bear news reports will be on display in the library throughout
our study. These are updated weekly for the monarchs and bears and daily
for the cranes. Last fall, the Journey
North crane reports binder was hands-down the most popular piece
of reading material in Mrs. Black's Grade 2/3 classroom, so she
expects these binders will get lots of use, too!
WEEKLY ANNOUNCEMENTS VIA THE P.A. SYSTEM
Members of the Grade 3 enrichment group are responsible for writing and
reading weekly migration updates on the morning announcements, so the
entire school is kept informed of the cranes' and monarchs' southbound
progress and the bears' arctic wanderings. This exercise also serves the dual purpose of giving
these students experience writing concise, to-the-point summaries and
speaking in public.
OUTREACH
Just as last year, this fall we plan to engage in a letter-writing
campaign, with students from other schools. We hope to lobby one or more
companies to donate funds to support the work of Operation
Migration, World
Wildlife Fund Canada and the Monarch
Butterfly Sanctuary Foundation. In the fall, we also
participated in Journey
North's "Symbolic Migration" program. See the "Outreach"
section of this website, for more information.
MIGRATION-RELATED MATH ACTIVITIES, FOR K-2 and SPECIAL
EDUCATION STUDENTS
Mrs. Black has designed five math activities to support the acquisition
of basic math skills and teach concepts relating to the seasons and
migration. Instructions and downloadable pdfs are provided in the "Games"
section of this website. In the "Games" section of this
website, you will also find a link to online Polar Bear/Arctic games on
the World Wildlife Fund International server.
"UNDER CONSTRUCTION"
Just as last year, when developing the cross-curricular,
classroom migration-monitoring model, this year we're
"flying by the seat of our pants" in developing a
whole-school-involvement model, so there really is no master plan.
Keep checking this page, and the main page of this website, for
the latest developments!
STAFF
ADVISOR TO MIGRATION CLUBS AND ENRICHMENT GROUPS:
Margaret Black, Learning Centre Special Education Resource Teacher
mcgyver@flashmail.com
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