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Ignacio Pérez Rayón Elementary, Grades 4, 5, and 6 On the road to their school, a typical sight to see is some of the parents getting a ride to work at the Sanctuaries. They may be guides, horse-men, helping their wives to assist clients at restaurants, forest guards, clean up crew, or taking part in reforestation activities. On arriving and being welcomed to the classroom, it's fun to see how children are getting excited about Christmas time coming. Students were designing a really new style of a Christmas tree which main structure is a rather thin and light wire-net cone that is wrapped up with pine cones (very commonly fallen from trees in the forest and easily found everywhere). They are very proud or their creation. It deserves credit as a work of art. Once Journey North is welcomed, teachers get excited about telling Estela “We knew you were coming and we are ready to hear you and see you exchanging with children; we wish the program and its message of conservation could be given to their parents and grandparents, too.” This is the third time teachers have expressed this point of view to me. Children volunteer to come to the front and be reminded about migration facts and challenges; every year Journey North visits them, they go onto more complex questions and comments. For example, they ask about the weather challenges for Monarchs as they migrate down to México; what about possible shortage in nectar along their way; how they save energy for their time while in Mexico, etc. It is really rewarding the way children show themselves to be aware of the importance of conservation and express their will to cooperate more and more to take on little responsibilities at home, at school, and in our whole environment in order to contribute to our habitat’s conservation and improvement. Once this reflected, they express great joy at writing their letters of response to their counterparts in United States and Canada, in order to share with them only a little parto of the richness of our flora and fauna in the overwintering forests of Monarchs, which knowledge they experiment with their parents and grandparents when they go with them to the forest. The donation of books is another very special moment. Books donated include, “Frida Kahlo’s” life (2 Books). “Abremente” game. Students were thrilled at seeing how far their symbolic Monarch has come from either from the United States or Canada, and the hundreds of kilometers they fly down simultaneously along with real Monarchs! Marbles and foot ball games are the most popular for boys, while girls simply hang around talking stories, anecdotes and every-day life and family experiences at home and in their village.
Butterflies Received Somers Elementary, Somers, CT
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