Monarch Butterflies

Teaching Ideas for The Tag That Traveled Round Trip
(Back to The Tag That Traveled Round Trip)

Before reading

Reading Strategy: Questions Before Reading
Ask: What clues does the title reveal? What do you think the story will be about?

Reading Strategy: Reading for Details
Look for the many coincidences in this story! Can students find these five?

• The butterfly tag made it to Mexico and then fell off the wing.
• The tag was found. (All tags are hard to find. This one was nearly buried in weeds.)
• The tag came from the same state where the author lives, just one hour’s drive from her home.
• The author happened to see a story in the newspaper about the man who had tagged the butterfly.
• The butterfly had been tagged exactly one year earlier, to the day, August 17, 2001.

Reading Strategy: Sequence Events
This story included information organized chronologically. Ask, What is the sequence of events described in the text? What clue words or phrases did the author use to help readers track the sequence of events? (eg. first, then, finally, next, last, while, during, after, dates, times).

Reading Strategy: Questions After Reading
What conclusions can be made about monarch migration from the details of this story? (Possible answers: Monarchs migrate as early as August 17th in Minnesota. It took about three months for the monarch to travel from Minnesota to Mexico, since the tag was found on November 21st. Monarchs can migrate 1,800 miles, the distance from Cannon Falls, MN to El Rosario Sanctuary in Michoacan, Mexico. Butterfly tags can fall off!)

Reading Strategy: Compare and Contrast Ideas
Ask, Why did the author compare a jet to a butterfly? How are they alike? How are they different? Why did the author make this comparison?