Rosh Hashanah: The Buzz on Bees

Apples and honey seem to get all the attention this time of year, but where would we be without the help and hard work of bees? This is a great season to teach about the life-cycle of bees and how they are helpful to us in our environment. At home, my very favorite way to do that is through play and hands-on exploration. Here's a peek at what we're doing this week in between errands and cooking to prepare for the holiday that's less than a week away!

Our local library is always a great resource for books and materials about a particular learning topic. To supplement that, I often search the internet for free printable cards and activities I can use at home. I found some beautiful honey bee life cycle cards here and printed/laminated a set for my son to be able to see individual steps of the life cycle as well as to teach some of the vocabulary around it.

I use a metal ring for easy storage and transport

Just as easily, we can slip them off the ring and work on sequencing

He liked this activity so much he wanted to do it again and again!

My busy little bee has officially picked up on our homeschool morning routine. After breakfast he goes right over to the hook where his school bag is hanging asks to "go school!" That means he wants me to sing our little school song, help him unzip the bag and let him see what I slipped inside the night before! On Monday morning he was very excited to find a book about bees and this bumblebee finger puppet. I don't tend to read all of our non-fiction books word for word with him, but I do show photos and highlight certain words and ideas. Using markers, crayons, do-a-dots and colored pencils in black and yellow, he decorated a piece of poster board that I then cut/stapled into a hat and attached some pipecleaner antennae. It was time for him to become a bee! For some music and movement fun, I put on Rimsky-Korsokov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" in the background, handed him a large pair of tons (found at the Dollar Tree) and let him take off to capture and collect pieces of pollen (large pom poms). The tongs, although still somewhat challenging for my toddler, add an element of fine motor practice to the activity. He equally enjoyed just dancing around like a bee!

I have had quite a few conversations with other teachers lately about how we teach children about shapes. There are many great ways to give over formal lessons about structure, number of sides and corners, etc., and one of my very favorite ways is simply through exposure as related to other themes we are exploring. Here's how we are learning about hexagons with a hands-on activity related to bee hives!

I love using these dry erase folders I found at Target this summer for worksheets and other printed activities I wish to use more than once. I use them along with dry erase markers sometimes, but also with playdough and here, with popsicle sticks. It cuts down a lot on "waste" and allows us to revisit an activity multiple times and in multiple ways.

This website had some cute bee crafts. I have some old bubble-wrap lying around that we will be painting and making prints with for a variation on this one.

We are fortunate to be members at our local science museum that has an amazing exhibit on bees including an active hive and some great kid-friendly hands on materials. This provided a great field trip for us and a fabulous way to extend the theme. Even if we didn't have such a perfect opportunity nearby, I've been amazed this late in the season to still see bees busy at work when we're at the park or botanical gardens. This is a great time of year to spark a conversation when you're out and about. My son is really into discussing his fears lately and has frequently said "bees scary" when we are learning or when we see them in nature. I think it is so important to validate those feelings (rather than saying "no they're not!") and to share the ways in which they also can help us and how we can do our best to stay safe and help them, too. For that reason, when we are singing the ever popular song "I'm Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee," I alter the words a bit to eliminate parts that are scary to humans or bees for that matter. 

Here are a couple of other songs and finger-plays we like about bees:

You can add to the fun of these by making your own (or printing out) bumblebee finger-puppets, stick puppets or props to use or even recycling a winter glove and attaching a picture of a bee to each finger with glue or velcro. Hope you all keep busy as bees as you play, learn and prepare for Rosh Hashanah!