Spring 2007 - Milton Academy

—Tara Sharma, Grade 3OnCentreA Sunflower FieldI woke up one morning.I looked outside.I stepped out of bedwith my shoelaces tied.I looked at those flowersthat looked like the sunor a golden blanket beautifully spun.Sunflowers will help youif you have a bad day.They cheer you up in every way.Doing Good: Third Graders Give a Little Help to Their FriendsIdeas about helping others beginat an early age. Milton’s thirdgraders embrace the charge to“do good” with a project thatcombines curriculum work in allareas of study. The love of abook, a butterfly and a sunflowergave rise to the third-grade philanthropyproject this year.The Book: Over the summer, risingstudents in Jane McGuinness’and Susan Wheelwright’s thirdgradeclasses read the book Owenand Mzee: The True Story of aRemarkable Friendship, whichchronicles the experience of ayoung hippopotamus orphanedby Southeast Asia’s tsunami of2004. Rescued by the membersof a small town in Kenya, “Owen”is sent to a sanctuary, where hebecomes the unlikely friend of a130-year-old tortoise namedMzee. The Haller Park Sanctuaryin Kenya is still home to this pairof friends whom Milton’s thirdgraders have come to adore andcheck in on regularly through thesanctuary’s Web site. Owen andMzee also helped kick off thethird-grade social studies unit onAfrica.The Butterfly: In a science unit,students study the life cycle of themonarch butterfly, learning abouteach stage of development andtracking the colorful creatures’journey to Mexico. Studentsraised monarch butterflies in theclassroom and let them go fortheir migration. While learningabout this migration, thirdgraders also learned about theoxymel trees of Mexico being cutdown for building and firewood.These trees host the monarchbutterflies for a few months eachwinter in the generational migrationsouth. Without these trees,the migration, and birth of thenext generation of butterflies, isfatally interrupted.The Sunflower: As part of lastyear’s third-grade “planting andgrowing” science unit, studentsplanted sunflower seeds, one ofwhich took root and grew to beover 12 feet tall, producing over1,500 seeds. In this year’s mathunit, students counted and dividedthe seeds into three groups:one for planting, one for theclassroom’s bird feeder, and oneto sell in support of the HallerPark Sanctuary in Kenya and foran organization that supports themigration of the monarch butterflycalled Journey North.“Susan and I are here for guidance,”Jane says, “but the studentsdecide what they want todo. They’re creative and theyunderstand how everything tiesin. They’re aware that they’reworking for a worthy cause. Weask together, ‘What can 8- and 9-year-olds do as an altruisticdeed?’ and they come up withgreat ideas.”Students designed seed packetsand decorated them with watercolorpaintings and originalpoetry. After much discussion,the class decided upon a price of$4 per packet, and sold the packetsto parents, friends and otherMilton Academy communitymembers.“The students understand thatthe money supports both the animalsthat we have come to loveand the butterflies we have followed,to keep them alive and flying,”Jane says. “It’s a great wayto teach children about giving toorganizations that aren’t necessarilythe popular names thatyou know. It’s the fruit of theirown work that benefits thesecauses. The whole project is connectedto our curriculum inmany ways.”EEH48 Milton Magazine