Inquiry: Animals in Winter – Part 2 – Migration

First we investigated the question, “Where do whales go in the winter?” by reading the book Migration of a Whale (Amaze) by Tanya Kant.

On the first day, we just read half of the book.  Then we talked about what migration meant and worked on finding the sentence in the book that explains migration.  After the lesson I had a student come and record our new learning.  She drew a gray whale to show her new learning.

The next day we read the rest of the book.  Then, we made this whale migration map together.  I cut out the green construction paper and glued it onto the blue to make the map.  The students helped to make the labels for the various areas of the map.  Then they helped to colour the whales gray and glue it on to the map following the example in the book.

We added these pieces to our inquiry bulletin board:

 Next we learned about the migration of the Monarch butterflies by reading the book “The Migration of a Butterfly (Amaze)”.

At centres they were encouraged to show how butterflies and whales migrate using these felt maps and story stones (both handmade by me).

The next day I invited students to create symmetry butterflies with black glue and water colour paint to put on our bulletin boards! I drew an example of what half a butterfly might look like so the students had a model to look at.  Then I also showed them how to only make a design on one side of the paper, fold the paper over gently and open it up to see their symmetrical butterfly.

The next day they could paint their butterflies with brown and orange watercolour paint! They LOVED this activity!

While we were making our butterflies, I had the student who originally asked where butterflies go in the winter time come and record the information she learned from the book.  We referenced the book to record the sentence!

We put her sentence up on the bulletin board and put the butterflies around them.

Next we learned about where birds go in the winter.  I read the students a few pages from “Why Do Animals Migrate?” by Bobbie Kalman and then the kids were invited to draw and label birds that migrate.  They could choose from a bird they learned about in the book or they could use the “Birds that Migrate” card I quickly made up and pick one from there.

Finally, I had students complete this writing activity.  If you were an animal, would you rather hibernate or migrate? Why?

This was a great way to assess their understanding of the vocabulary we learned throughout this inquiry!