Honey of a Bee
Targeted grades: K-2(1996-97 NTTI Teacher of the Year Award Winner)
Master Teacher: Kari Eggink
OVERVIEW
In this lesson students will listen to a book and watch part of a video to learn about bees. They will learn why a bee is an insect, the name of a bee's home, the roles of different kinds of honeybees, and then taste the "fruits" of the bee's labor. (Time: Three or more blocks of 35 - 45 minutes each, depending on grade level.)
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Students will be able to :
1. Label a bee including the head, thorax, body and wings.
2. Tell the name of the home for a bee.
3. Write which type of honeybee they would prefer to be and why.
4. Taste honey and tell when they might eat it.
5. Write a sentence about honeybees.
6. Complete a book using bees to show position.
MATERIALS
For the teacher:
For each student:
* Pencil (Previewing activity, lesson 1, 2 and post-viewing activity)
* Crayons (Previewing activity, lesson 1, 2 and post-viewing activity)
* Glue and scissors (Lesson 1, 2, and post-viewing activities)
* Piece of rice, pipe cleaner cut into 1.5" sections, construction paper honeycombs (Lesson 2)
PRE-VIEWNG ACTIVITIES
Prerequisite Knowledge: This lesson is intended to be part of a unit on insects. It is assumed that the students have some knowledge of insects...caterpillars and butterflies, for instance.
Review the main parts of an insect. (Insects have three main body parts: a head, thorax and body. They have three pairs of legs and most adults have wings.) To reinforce student learning about the parts of an insect, use the "Honeybee" worksheet to cut out and label honeybee body parts. Students may wish to color their honeybee after they're done labeling.
Lesson 1
Brainstorm about honeybees. Ask students to fit their thoughts under the following categories and write their answers on the chart in the appropriate column.
Tell students you are going to read a book about honeybees and you want them to listen to see if any of the items we have listed on the chart are also in the book. Read The Life Cycle of a Honeybee by Paula Z. Hogan. Ask the students to tell you what they heard. Cross off those things on the chart that students learned were not true, answer any questions under "What I want to know" and ask students to tell you anything else that they learned. If necessary, reread the book to reinforce student learning.
Teach the class the following finger play:
FOCUS FOR VIEWING
Lesson 2
Say, "As we learned in the book, The Life Cycle of a Honeybee, bees go through stages of life just like butterflies. Today we are going to learn about those stages of life from an expert on bees. We will met an apiculturist (a beekeeper) who will tell us what it's like to be a beekeeper, and we'll get to see the stages a bee goes through in his or her life."
To give students a specific responsibility while viewing, as them to listen for what the beekeepers charge for rent. Start video after the book is finished. Pause after LeVar Burton says, "The beekeepers charge rent." Ask your class, "What do you think they charge the bees?" (Honey!)
Before continuing video tell your students that LeVar told us that honeybees live in trees and high rise apartments built by beekeepers. To give students a specific responsibility while viewing, ask, "What do you think we call these 'bee apartments' " Play tape and pause after LeVar says, "Am I going to get stung ?" (class should answer "hives" for "bee apartments")
To give students a specific responsibility while viewing, ask, "What can LeVar do so he won't get stung ?" Play the tape to see if your answer matches what LeVar does on the tape. Pause after he says, "Well, I'm bee proof."
Discuss what he did. How did he make himself bee proof? Did he do anything different that what you predicted he would do? (There isn't any part of LeVar exposed to the bees.)
Say, "Let's go see the bees at work." To give students a specific responsibility while viewing, ask the class to listen again for the name of the "bee apartments" and to look for how many layers or tiers they can see in the hive.
Play tape and pause after LeVar says, "A calm bee is a happy bee!" Ask the class: "What are those buildings?" (Hives) "How many layers or tiers do you see ?" (three).
To give students a specific responsibility while viewing ask them to listen to see what is in each layer. Play tape and pause when you hear, "I'm dying to take a look inside. We're going to see what's in the first layer." Ask your class to predict what they think is in the first layer. (Bees making honey.)
Play tape, and pause after you hear, "Wow! Look at these bees !" Ask if their predictions were right. (Honey is in the top layer.)
To give students a specific responsibility while viewing, ask them to predict what might be on the second layer or tier of the hive. Play tape and pause after hearing, "This is where the queen lays her eggs, and they raise their young." Check to see if student predictions about this layer were correct and then have them form some assumptions as to why the queen might lay here eggs on this layer and not the top layer.
To give students a specific responsibility while viewing, ask them to listen to this next part to hear about the roles of the queen bee and the worker bees. Play tape and pause after you hear, "So the pollen will stick to their hair." Ask the class describe the appearance of the queen bee and the appearance of the worker bees. Tell your class that not only do these two types of bees look different, they also have different jobs.
To give students a specific responsibility while viewing, Say, "In this next part of the tape I want you to listen to find out what the queen is doing." Play tape and pause after you hear, "She doesn't even get to stop for lunch?" Discuss the queen's job. (to lay eggs.)
VIEWING ACTIVITIES
(Before beginning lesson, place rice, pipe cleaners, and construction paper cut-outs in the center of the tables. Have students get out their scissors, crayons and glue.)
Tell students you are going to begin an art project that will help them to remember the stages of a honeybee's life.
Pass out the stages of life worksheet.
Have them read the sentence under the first square. (The queen bee lays an egg.)
* Ask the students to look at the objects you placed on the desk before the lesson began. Ask: "Which one do you think would be the best item to represent a honeybee egg ? Why ?" (Rice, because It looks similiar to a bee egg.)
* Have them color in the honeycomb and glue on a piece of rice to symbolize an egg laid by the queen bee.
* They may wish to draw in and color a queen bee.
Say, "Listen to the tape again to see the second stage of a bee's life." Play tape and pause after, "She'll deposit some food, nectar and pollen to the larva." Ask what the second stage of a honeybee's life is called (larva) and what it looks like (white, curved, slightly swollen).
Say, "Let's read the second part of our stages of life paper." (The egg hatches into a larva.)
* Ask which object placed on the desk would best represent the larva stage. (Pipe cleaner)
* Ask students to color the honeycomb, then shape the pipe cleaner to represent the larva and glue it to one of the honeycomb cells.
* They may wish to draw and color some worker bees around the larva.
Say, "Let's listen very carefully to hear about the next stage." Start tape and pause after hearing, "Then she'll cap the cell with wax and the larva will grow inside." Say, "The tape did not specifically tell us what the next stage is, let's see if you remember when we talked about butterflies. What stage came after the larva stage ?" (Pupa) "Can you see a butterflies' pupa stage ?" (No). Honeybees are the same--you can't see the pupa stage since the worker bee covers it with wax.
Let's read the next part of our paper. (The cell is covered with wax. Inside a pupa grows.)
* Ask: What could we use to cover the cells? What could we use to represent the wax ?
* We are going to use some construction paper cut out in the same shape as a honeycomb cell to represent the wax.
* Have them color the honeycomb cells.
* Glue a honeycomb shape over one to the cells.
* They may wish to draw and color some worker bees too.
Say, "We're going to listen for the last stage of a bee." Start tape and pause after, "Wow! That's a brand new baby bee !"
Read the last sentence on the paper. (A baby bee is born.)
* Color in the honeycomb.
* Draw in a new bee. Be it has a head, body, thorax, six legs and a pair of wings.
* Review the stages of a bee with the class. Have them read the sentences to a friend.
Say, "For the last part of this lesson, we are going to talk about what else bees do. We learned that a queen bee lays the eggs, the males (drones) don't do much and the worker bees are kept very busy. Let's listen in to see what jobs the worker bees perform." Start tape and pause after hearing, "Let's let them get back to work. Good idea."
Review the bee jobs with your class. (The queen bees lays eggs all day. The drones don't do much. The worker bees, clean the cells, feed the larva, fan the hive, gather nectar, spread pollen, etc.).
Wrap-up activity:
Say, "You are now a honeybee. You need to decide which kind of bee you want to be. Do you want to be a queen bee, a worker bee or a drone ?" Pass out the worksheet called, "If I were a honeybee..." Say, "On your worksheet, write about which type of bee you want to be and why. Then add a picture and color it."
Lesson 3
Say, "We have learned why bees are considered insects, what their home is called, and what each type of bee does. In this lesson, we are going to learn how to get honey from the hive into a jar (or plastic honey bear bottle) like this one." (Hold up a jar of honey). Discuss possibilities with your class. Tell the class to watch for the steps involved.
Start the tape from where you left off for Lesson 2. Pause after the man says, "...but mine is straight out of the jar." Review with the class the steps for getting honey out of the jar. Discuss with the class why each step is necessary. (Cutting the wax off with a hot knife, putting the combs into a centrifuge, spinning the honey out, putting honey through a clarifying machine, and pumping into jars.)
Spoon some of the honey onto crackers and let each child taste the honey. Have them describe the honey (sticky, smooth, sweet) and tell when they might eat honey (on sandwich, on pancakes or cornbread, mixed with peanut butter to make "Pooh butter") As an alternative activity you may wish to make cornbread and put the honey on it.
POST-VIEWING ACTIVITIES
Say, "We learned about the bees making honey. Today we are going to pretend to be bees and we are going to go out to gather the nectar from the flowers to make honey." Ask part of the class be flowers. They will cut our three flowers and glue it to a headband. Have five students make bee finger puppets using cutouts. (See handout for specifics on making the finger puppets and the headbands.)
Place the flowers sitting in a row--as if in a garden--while the bees stand at the other side.
Have everyone sing the song on the following page, to the tune of "Three Blind Mice."
Five Little Bees
Five little bees, five little bees, (Hold bee puppets in the air.)
See how fast they fly, see how fast they fly. (Bees fly around and up and down.)
They all fly onto the flowers so fair, (Bees fly to the flowers)
They gather up all the pollen that's there. (Bend fingers up and down.)
They drink the nectar that each flower bears. (Wiggle fingers back and forth.)
See how fast they fly, see how fast they fly. (Bees fly around and up and down.)
Five little bees, five little bees. (Hold bee puppets up in the air.)
How slowly they fly, how slowly they fly. (Bees fly slowly around.)
With tummies so full they can't fly very fast (Bees fly slowly, rub tummies.)
They leave all the flowers and fly right past. (Bees fly slowly past flowers.)
They carry their pollen back home at last. (Bees gather in a group.)
How slowly they fly, how slowly they fly. (Bees fly slowly away.)
Repeat until everyone in your class has had a chance to be a bee and a flower. Discuss what it felt like to be a bee and why the bees are important to the flowers.
Have them review "position" words (i.e.-- in, above, under, beside...etc) by reading and completing the "Honeybee, Where Are You ?" booklet. Read the booklet directions together. Depending on the ability level of your students you may choose to have them follow along page by page or you may want to read the book together and then have them go back and reread it drawing in the bees where asked.
ACTION PLAN
To extend this lesson outside the walls of the classroom:
1. Visit a beekeeper or ask one to come to your classroom for a visit.
2. Visit a honey processing plant.
3. Visit a local nursery to have them explain why bees are important to their line of work.
4. Have students observe honeybees in their own yard--they can do this through a window if they prefer-and write or draw observations in a journal.
EXTENSIONS
1. Go to the local library to check out books about honeybees.
2. Create a poem or story about honeybees.
3. Create a paper garden complete with honeybees.
4. Make up a simple recipe that uses honey.
5. Play the "Flight of the Bumblebee " and allow the students to move around the room pretending to be bumblebees. Ask students why the song is called "The Flight of the Bumblebee" and not "The Flight of the Elephant" or "The Flight of the Earthworm".
ADDITIONAL HONEYBEE RESOURCES
Books:
The Magic School Bus Inside a Beehive by Joanna Cole, Scholastic, 1996
The Life and Times of the Honeybee by Charles Micucci, Ticknor and Fields Books for Young Readers, 1995
What's Inside ? Insects, Dorling Kindersley, Inc., Scholastic Book Club Edition, 1992
The Bee (A Pop-up Book) by Dr. Beth B. Norden, Stewart, Tabori & Chang, Inc., 1991
The World of Honeybees by Virginia Harrison, G. Stevens Children's Books, 1989
Honeybee by Barrie Watts, Silver Burdett Press, 1989
Life of the Honeybee by Heiderose Fischer-Nagel, Carolrhoda Books, 1986
The Honeybee by Takeshi Otani, Raintree Publishers, 1986
Honeybees by Graham Tarrant, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1984
Questions and Answers About Bees by Betty Polisar Reigot, Scholastic Book Services, 1983
Video:
The Magic School Bus Inside a Beehive
Video Disc:
BioSci II, Elementary Edition (The bar codes and a brief explanation of each segment are included in this lesson.)
