Prairie Primer Big Woods -week 3

The following pictures are not scenes from a bad dream LOL.  These are pics of Denim acting out the chores of a worker bee. A very smart mom from our co-op suggested I have her act things out in an attempt to improve retention. So, as our Prairie Primer studies this week focused on bees we gave it a shot. Here is a "Picture-Play: of the worker bee's jobs starring Denim.



A worker bee helps to build a cell



If the cell is damaged a worker bee will help repair it.

Worker bees also help keep the cell clean.



"nurse" worker bees feed the larvae in the cells
(the plate is supposed to represent larvae)







Worker bees cap the cell with wax just before the

larvae turn into pupae.





In some of the cells the worker bees will store the food.



If a cell becomes too cold the worker bees will form a blanket of bees to keep it warm.





If the cell gets hot the worker bees will drop water on it and fan it with their wings to cool it off



The worker bees also help take care of the queen and will even lick her clean

"Guard" worker bees defend the cell at all costs.

The enemies of worker bees are doomed- the bee will attack and sting!

When a worker bee stings- it suffers a worse fate as it will lose it's stinger and die

"forager" worker bees bring the food back to the hive

There are a few other jobs worker bees do and we acted out many, many scenes.  I asked her afterwards about some of the things we learned- I was quite discouraged. We did have a good time doing this but the point of the whole thing was retention. However, the kids and I played a beekeeper game from homeschool share which you can find here:

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/beekeeper_game.php

Denim and the bee game we played- this game is so much fun they want to play it everyday!

I was amazed to find out- she really remembered a lot! I'm not sure why she couldn't immediately recall the information but acting it out seemed to help her in the long run and that's what I'm after!  If you are studying bees this is a great asset and a lot of fun! We also inspected a honeycomb- the kids were really impressed with this.

We happen to be oh so lucky (not!) to have a bee and wasp problem in our backyard right now. They aren't honeybees but they were there so we checked them out, too.



There's a tiny bee in there.



We learned so much this week about Bees. I think our greatest source of information came from the book Questions and Answers About Bees by Betty Polisar. This was a fantastic resource! It is jampacked with information and awesome illustrations. You can find it here:

http://www.amazon.com/Questions-Answers-About-Polisar-Reigot/dp/0590321331

  We also have an unexpected field trip next week to meet a bee-keeper and help process honey! I was speaking to a few moms on Sky's baseball team and they happen to know a very passionate beekeeper who lives nearby. I contacted him and he's willing to let the kids come on out Wednesday so look for an update on that next week!