Today I visited Henderson Mill Elementary School in DeKalb County to talk to their 5th grade garden club about bees. I had a great time. The students took me on a tour of the two large garden areas that they manage with their teacher who is a Master Gardener. They wanted to learn how bees and beehives work. I talked to them all about bees and then let them taste some of my honey. Here they are with popsicle stick tasters, sampling the honey.
They also explored the comb in frames that I brought. The comb was in various stages of being made - I had some partially filled frames. The kids at this table are looking at a frame in which the bees had just started to store honey at the end of the nectar flow.
To get ready for this talk, I found two marvelous children's books on bees and beekeeping:
The Life and Times of the Honeybee by Charles Micucci
and
The Honey Makers by Gail Gibbons
Both of these books are well-illustrated and give simple reasonable explanations about life in the beehive.
I did wish that I had large pictures of the worker bee, the queen bee and the drone. I also wanted a picture of bees with pollen baskets full that was large. I have some good photos that I have taken, but they are not large (poster like) so I'm going to look at the bee supply companies for some resources.
I had a great time at Henderson - I hope I get more opportunities to speak about the bees - it's always fun.!
Linda,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you got to work with these students! I am a teacher, and use bees as often as possible! On my blog, I have a list of several websites that I compiled to help teachers teach about bees. I also have a webquest (not on the blog) that I created using the Micucci book.
I'm talking with my son's K class next month!
Steve
http://mountainmusingsonbeesandlife.blogspot.com/2007/07/honeybee-websites-for-elementary.html
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