Do you have a school break or holiday coming up? Are you worried about how to keep kids engaged in learning during the short week? Look no further!
With this themed Monarch Butterfly Lesson Plan, you will have everything you need to keep students engaged AND learning until the last bell rings. Keep reading to learn more about this mini-unit and how to implement it in your elementary classroom.
Monarch Butterfly Migration Lesson Plan
Before we talk about how to implement this monarch butterfly lesson plan in your classroom, let’s talk a bit about how it is designed. This lesson plan was designed using project based learning. Therefore, it is intended to provide students with a hands on experience.
Moreover, we designed this mini unit specifically to be used during those weeks when scheduling is not on your side! You know what we are talking about. The week before Christmas break or the end of the school year. All of those weeks when you as a teacher lose valuable instructional time.
As educators with decades of experience in the classroom, we know how frustrating those weeks can be. We also know how important it is to find ways to keep students learning! Enter our one day units!
These one day units are not only designed to be taught in one day, but to cover ALL of the core content in one day! Let’s explore what that looks like using our Monarch Butterfly Migration Lesson Plan.
Monarch Butterfly Life Cycle Facts
Throughout the school day, students will learn important facts about Monarch butterflies and their life cycle. They do this by engaging in hands on activities, collaborative projects, and real world problem solving assignments. Each activity is designed to teach kids about a new topic and help them deepen their understanding of academic concepts.
As part of the project based learning approach, students will explore Monarch butterflies through the lens of real world situations. This situation is introduced to students at the start of the day, through a guiding question: How can we help protect Monarchs during their migration?
With this guiding question in mind, students begin their exploration of the Monarch butterfly migration process. The first step – reading about Monarch butterflies.
Monarch Butterfly Reading Activity
The first learning activity of the day is a reading activity. Students read an informational text called, Marvelous Monarchs to learn important facts about Monarchs. This text is available in a printable and digital (projectable) version. There are also video links provided with additional information.
In addition to the text, each student will receive a note-taking sheet. This note-taking sheet will help each student keep track of the important facts they learn while reading.
Monarch Butterflies Writing Activity
After students have their facts, they are ready to write about monarch butterflies! Remember that the purpose of this unit is to give kids a real world experience. Therefore, rather than just writing a paragraph about the butterflies, they will use the format of an informational tab booklet.
This format is a great example of project based learning because it shows students one way writing may be used beyond the classroom. Something we love introducing learners to early on!
Monarch Butterflies Math Lesson Plan
Once students understand the monarch’s life cycle, it is time for them to explore the flight path in more detail. Moreover, they get to track the miles of the migration in this hands on math activity!
To further the students’ real world experience during this performance based activity they will pretend to be part of a team that is tracking the monarch butterflies. Working together as a team, they will calculate how many miles the butterflies travel to Mexico – including stopping at flower gardens to rest.
Your students will love taking part in this experience of tracking the butterflies. Moreover, they will enjoy tracking the butterflies with the monarch butterfly math sheets provided for this activity!
Monarch Butterfly Migration STEM Project
If students can explore the monarch’s migration through math then they can also explore it through science! Moreover, through combining math and science in our monarch STEM Project for kids.
In this STEM project, children continue their exploration of the monarch butterfly by constructing a model of a monarch butterfly. To further develop the real world experience, students are asked to construct this model for the conservation team to use at their booth to save the monarch butterfly.
To help prepare students to build a butterfly with the correct characteristics they will begin their project by exploring content-specific vocabulary words, like “antennas” and “characteristic.” After developing the appropriate vocabulary, they will explore the symmetry of a real monarch butterfly. Then, they will build their own butterfly.
Monarch Butterflies Art Activity
While the STEM project allows students to engage in some creative activities, we believe there is always room for more creative activities! So, what better way to bring the students’ study of monarch butterflies to a close than with an art activity?
In this culminating activity, students create a poster to help raise awareness about monarchs in their communities. While this is a creative and fun way to end the unit, it maintains the important elements of project based learning by asking students to apply their learning to a real world situation.
Monarch Butterflies in the Classroom
As you can see above, this monarch butterfly lesson plan has everything you need to teach students about monarch butterflies. However, some classes may want to explore monarch butterflies further. Therefore, we have provided you with additional activities.
- Monarch life cycle activities
- Label a monarch
- Monarch maze
- Hunting for milkweed and monarch activity
These additional activities can be used in any way that fits the needs of your classroom. You may choose to substitute one of the above activities with one of these additional ones or use these activities to extend learning throughout the week. You may even decide not to use them! Again, you choose what fits the needs of your classroom.
Whether you add these additional activities to your lesson plans or only focus on the core activities above, your students will get an in-depth understanding of monarch butterflies. Moreover, they will get all of it from a real world experience and in one day!
However you choose to explore monarch butterflies in the classroom, we wish you a fun and informative day of learning! And, once you are done with exploring butterflies check out our other one day units for the next time you have a short school week.
