Migration Madness!

Whew, another whirlwind of a day here at Hitchcock Center Homeschool!  It really was migration madness, as we all hopped into the van and travelled to Mount Sugarloaf for a look at animals migrating through the skies.  But I'll start at the beginning...
First, homeschoolers decorated their own "binoculars", which instead of magnifying things from a distance, helped focus our eyes onto objects we wanted to look at.  Then we played "Park Ranger" a favorite running game outside, in which children become whatever animal they choose, and have to cross the park if the park ranger describes them.  For example, "Animal animal cross my park if you... have fur!"
Then it was time for morning meeting.  We did a greeting of shaking hands, practicing eye contact with the person we greeted.  Afterward we played "Have you ever?" a get to know you game in which children move across the circle if something is true for them.  For example, "Have you ever... been to California?"  We then looked at the schedule for the day, which includes words and pictures.  From now on, the schedule will be posted on the wall at each homeschool class.

Soon it was time to share home projects.  It was clear that children worked very hard at home last week!  It was exciting to see the different ways families preserved food for winter, often from their own gardens at home.  After some stretching, we read the morning message.  Today's password was a lot trickier than last weeks': lepidoptera.  It was an intimidating word, so we broke it down: lepido means "scales" and ptera is Greek for "wings".  So, lepidoptera is a family of insects that includes butterflies and moths, all of whom have microscopic scales on their wings!  Cool.  (We practiced the password all throughout the day; I think some kids still thought it was "leopard opera" by the end, but most everyone got the scales and wings part!)  

For our morning activity we read the story of Martha the monarch and charted her migration to Mexico on a map of the United States.  Kids loved taking turns taping monarchs, milkweed, and arrows on the map!  Each color arrow stands for a different monarch making the journey.  In our story, it was Martha's great granddaughter, Maya (pink arrow), that repeated the journey of Martha (blue arrow)by migrating south.

Soon it was time to migrate to Mount Sugarloaf!  First we had lunch, and then set off to look for migrants.  We saw many lepidoptera, including a monarch that we were able to tag with Anne and Carole's help.  It was exciting to see a monarch up close, and then watch it fly away as it got used to its new tag.  We also spotted a peregrine falcon soaring high up in the sky.  Kids recorded what they saw on migration sheets.

After having a good look around, we played a game to demonstrate the hazards of migrating.  Children were geese trying to migrate south, trying not to get tagged by hungry predators: falcons!  Unfortunately not everybody made it.  But that's how it goes in nature, folks.  It seemed like we were only there a few minutes before it was time to go.  We arrived back at the Hitchcock Center and wrote in our journals about the day's theme and drew pictures of migration. 
See you next week!