Honey Bees

Today was our last day learning about insects that fly. During our morning circle we talked about March almost being over and April being our next month. The kids continued the ABAC pattern and identified numbers 11-30. We skip counted by 10's, 5's and learned how to skip count by 2's. After reviewing the consonant and vowel sounds we blended words ending in -en. We read hen, Ben, ten, pen, men and den. Before heading outside we practiced our everyday words and added "I", "to" and "like" to our list to help us with the story sent home in the homework folders.

Our story today was "The Bumblebee Queen" by April Sayre. The story explained the life of the queen bee. The queen laid eggs inside the beehive. Once they eggs hatched they were little larvae and didn't have wings. They spun a cocoon and when the bees came out of the cocoon they had wings and looked like a bee. After reading the story we learned that bees are also important because they make honey. The kids helped sequence the steps to make honey. First the bees collect nectar from flowers. Then they carry the nectar in their socks back to the beehive. The bees put the nectar inside a honeycomb. They use their wings to help dry the nectar. Then they cover the honeycomb with wax so the nectar can turn into honey.

For art today the kids made a beehive. We painted bubble wrap yellow and pressed it onto the paper to make the beehive and honeycombs. Next the kids used a finger and yellow ink to make little bee bodies around the beehive. We use a black marker to draw black stripes, antennae and wings.

During writing today we practiced writing lowercase "d". The kids also wrote a fact about bees in their journals. Before eating lunch we had show and tell. The kids loved sharing what they brought from home. We ended the day with bee songs and watching real bees and bee keepers.