Week 5 -- Monarch release!

This week saw a grand finale of sorts as we assembled the combined 5/6 classes on the playground to do a mass release of the many monarchs that we have shepherded from caterpillar to butterfly. This is the generation of monarchs who will work their way all the way down to Northern Mexico, where they will spend the winter. When spring arrives, their offspring will begin working their way north again. All of the monarchs released from Summers-Knoll have been tagged by students, so our fingers are crossed that we may one day get word of where they end up.

These are the tags that we put on the wing of each butterfly released from Summers-Knoll. Keen-eyed butterfly observers along the migration route sometimes come across tagged butterflies, and report the sighting to Monarch Watch. 

As we conclude this phase of the project, we are turning our eyes toward the future, participating in a brainstorming session to envision where we’d like the project go from here. What do we want to accomplish with it by the end of the school year? What might it look like one year after that? What should it look like in five year’s time? The ideas that we generate and agree upon will inform what our next steps will be with this exciting endeavor.

Feeding a monarch before release

Meanwhile, we are rapidly approaching the climax of The Tiger Rising, a novel that we’re reading together as a class. We generally have a brief discussion at the end of each chapter, discussing the text and making observations and connections. On Monday, one such discussion ballooned to a remarkable degree as kids started debating the ethics and morality of zoos. This led to Tuesday’s journal writing prompt, “How do you feel about zoos?” Many kids filled pages with their thoughts, and the conversation is clearly far from over.

Our math group met only three times this week, on account of our Professional Development day, so Monday was devoted to a group problem solving activity focused on creating an organized list and using it to analyze data (ask your kids about glass fish, gouramis, and neon tetras), while Tuesday and Friday were both spent working independently in math books for some, and continuing assessments for others.