Social Emotional Learning
A Butterfly Takes Flight
Objective
In this activity, students will be writing a poem about a butterfly’s migration journey. They will highlight challenges monarch butterflies face during migration which students learned about with Change is Simple. These poems will be from a butterfly’s perspective and will talk about how the butterfly is feeling as it faces different challenges. To close out their poem, students will write a couple lines about how humans can help make a butterfly’s journey easier!
Materials
Paper
Student computers
Writing materials
Activity Duration:
45-60 minutes
Standards alignments
Common Core
W.2.3. Write narratives in prose or poem form that recount a well-elaborated event or experience, or a set of events or experiences; include details and dialogue to show actions, thoughts, and feelings; use temporal words to signal order where appropriate; and provide a sense of closure. a. For poems, use words and phrases that form patterns of sounds (e.g., regular beats, alliteration, end rhymes, repeated sounds in words or lines) to create structure.
Instructions
Reflect on your Change is Simple lesson. As a class, identify the main challenges monarch butterflies are facing during their migration (examples include: limited resources, pesticide usage, more homes and fewer resting places).
Introduce the activity to students. Students will be writing a poem from the perspective of a migrating monarch butterfly. They will be highlighting some of the challenges these butterflies are facing and will end with a call to action from the butterfly to the reader.
Give students time to brainstorm and write their poems.
Once students have finished their poems, have 3 volunteers read their poems to the class.
To wrap up, have a short 10-15 minute conversation about how students relate to how migrating butterflies are feeling and how the students can overcome these challenges.
As a class, display your poems in the hallway!