Recently our
children have had a real fascination with bees.
This seemed to come about last term when some of our children shared
their excitement when they received honey through their sibling’s school bee
hives.
This lead to
some wonderful discussions about bees and honey, many of our children were real
experts with wonderful existing knowledge about bees and more importantly honey. What a lovely opportunity for our children to
discuss and share their own ideas and thoughts about bees. It was during these discussions that a couple
of children decided that they wanted to draw while explaining their thoughts. The purpose of drawing helped our children
think with a scientific lens about what knowledge they had. While drawing they
were asking each other, what a bee looks like or does a bee have wings or legs,
how many?
Desired goals of science in the early childhood curriculum
include what we hope children will attain or achieve. Children’s body of knowledge develops and
increases over time, and their desire to communicate and represent their
knowledge should be acknowledged and supported.
(Ruth
Wilson, 2007).
As more
children become curious and interested I started to work with small groups to
find out what was their existing knowledge was about bees. While some other children weren’t quite as
sure about their knowledge and were asking their friends many interesting questions
such as “Do bees eat grass? Does the
queen bee have a crown?” Here are
some of our children’s initial thoughts;
Isla W: My bee has 10 legs and wings. They eat honey. They get honey from the flowers and mix it
all up into honey. They live in a bee
hive. I love honey.
Kalani: If you annoy bees they will sting you. They have stripes that tells you they are
bees. They make honey for you to eat on
your toast. They live in a hive. I’ve got a bee hive at my farm house. My Poppa gets the hive he has a special coat
so the bees don’t get him.
Lali: A bee has wings and a stinger and I know it
has stripes. They eat nectar from
flowers and make honey. Bees live under
ground.
Finn: They sting, bees have stripes across there
and wings. They eat resin dripping down
from trees. Sometimes they live in hives
that’s where I think they live. They fly
around using their wings and they fly from flower to flower to get pollen. I learned a lot about bees and stuff from my
jungle book. I know they make honey. The bees drink honey and take it back to the
hive, then put it in the little cave things to store it. I like honey yum.
Tamsyn: It has 1,2,3,4,5,6 legs, they fly with wings
and eat nothing. They live in a bee hive
with windows and a door. They make
honey.
Alex: I think bees live in trees, I don’t know much
about bees I only know all about chainsaws.
Actually I have no idea. I know
they move around by flying and I know they make honey. I saw one once on my chainsaw it looked like
a little black dot. But I really have no
idea about bees I only have ideas about chainsaws.
Willa: Bees eat honey, they have wings to fly. They live in a bee hive, they have heaps of
legs. They have black stripes and on
their body they are yellow. They have
some eyes two, them have a mouth like this.
They have a bumble thingee that stings.
I got one on my finger near the cattery, it doesn’t sting now it’s
better.
Jack: Bees have wings, a body, a stinger, eyes and
a mouth. They are yellow. Bees live in a hive, they fly around the bee
house and fly to get some honey. They
eat honey and they make honey for people.
The honey comes from flowers and then the bees make it into honey then
the groceries man comes and get it and puts it in a box and then brings it to
the grocery store then everybody buy it.
This term
something pretty exciting happened we had a couple of local beekeepers, Karl
and Nanette from Tahi honey visit kindergarten with a live display bee hive. Our
children seemed pretty delighted and surprised when they arrived. Having experts from our community with such
vast knowledge visit our kindergarten created many opportunities for hands-on
learning for the children to look, listen, touch, pick apart, compare, explore
and even taste.
The display
hive was very fascinating, there were so many bees to observe. It was truly captivating to watch the bees
and this seemed to spark the children’s curiosity and wonder. There were some wonderful conversations, I
felt extremely privileged to be part of and here is a snippet of one of many
discussions:
“The bees are
flying”. “No they are buzzing.” “What’s that noise?” “I can hear them”. “I can’t”.
“I can hear they are buzzing”. “I
can see the queen”. “I can’t see the
crown.” “The queen bee has a dot on it
not a crown”. “I see they do have stripes”. “They make honey, I like honey”. “I like honey too”. “I really like honey, you have to be careful
when getting the honey, they might sting you”.
“Curiosity is a hunger to explore and a delight in
discovery. When we are curious, we
approach the world with a child-like habit of poking and prodding and asking
questions. We are attracted to new
experiences. Rather than pursuing an
agenda or a desired set of answers, we follow our questions where they lead. We learn for the joy of learning”. (Wisedom commons)
During our
investigations we discovered some fascinating facts about bees, including that
the display hive was full of mostly girl bees, they are queens or worker
bees. The boys are drones and are
slightly bigger in size, they don’t forage or help with hive tasks. The queen bee was in there laying eggs with
capped brood (eggs), these will hatch as worker bees after 21 days. The average life span of worker bees is
generally eight weeks in summer and up to twelve in winter. It takes eight worker bees their entire life
to make one teaspoon of honey. The queen
bee doesn’t wear a crown, to see the queen easier in a busy hive they have a
dot of a variety of colours put on the head or body.
At the end
of the visit we all had a special treat, we all got to taste real honey. It certainly seemed to be a real highlight,
after all who doesn’t like a little bit of honey.
“If everything is honey and I am what I eat, I must be made
of honey…and life is very sweet”. (Winnie the Pooh - A. A. Milne)
It was
wonderful to watch our children displaying a sense of wonder and curiosity while
learning about nature. The bees were
very captivating which seemed to lead our children to seek a deeper understanding
and have a thirst for knowledge. These
are all great skills and characteristics to carry through life-long learning.
“The pursuit of knowledge is never-ending. The day you stop seeking knowledge is the day you stop growing”. (Brandon Travis Ciaccio)
Mā te wā, Susie
