Bees

Hello!  On Monday, I told you that everything was growing outside including my grass.   Yesterday, I mowed my yard.  We've got a few dandelions in our yard, and I noticed that there were bees on them.  It got me thinking about bees and how important they are to all of us.  But before we get to learning about bees, let's dance.  This dance is one of my favorites, and we've done it at school before.  It's called Dance Like You've Got Ants in Your Pants.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYWycl8vR5c

Story:  Bees are very important.  They pollinate plants so that fruits and vegetables can grow.  Without the bees to do this important job, we wouldn't have a lot of the food that we eat.  In this fun non-fiction story, a bear finds out how important bees are to him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XFQNGJmLEk  What do you think the bear learned in this story?  It's something that we can learn, too.   How can we take care of bees?  We can plant flowers that attract them.  Grown-ups can be careful not to spray bug spray that could kill bees.

Bee Sting Game (counting, fine motor, taking turns):  I've got a game for you to make and play with a grown-up or sibling.  You will need something to make a game board out of such as paper, poster board or cardboard, crayons or markers, a ruler, a dice, and something to be a bee such as a button, a coin, or you could make a little bee out of paper.  With a grown-up's help, cut a piece of paper 2 inches wide and 22 1/2 inches long.  You may have to tape some paper together as I did.  On the strip of paper/poster board, make a line every 1 1/2 inches.  You should have 15 rectangle boxes when you get done. Your game board should look something like this. 

Find the square in the middle by counting 8 squares and put the bee on that square.  Now you're ready to play.
The object of this game is to get the bee to sting the person you are playing instead of you.  Roll the dice and identify the number on top.  Using that number, count and move the bee away from you and toward your opponent.  Now they get to roll the dice, but this time they will count and move the bee towards you.  Keep taking turns moving the bee back and forth until the bee makes it to one end of the paper.  The person on that end of the paper gets "stung".  Say Buzzzzzzzzzzz

Letter Learning:  The sight word for today is "be".  This is a different word than bee the bug, but it sounds the same.  Make sentences that tell me what you'd like to "be".  I want to be a teacher.  I want to be a helper.

I've very excited about our special Ride Into Summer Day which will be held tomorrow.  I hope to see all of you! 

I will continue to blog next week on Monday and Wednesday.  I will be giving ideas of things to do all summer while we wait for school to start again in the fall.  Here's a few pictures from this week.