My wife volunteers at my 2nd grader's school, mostly in the library, and talks to my son''s teacher quite often. The teacher mentioned last week that they had just gotten done learning about bees, and "Jacob seems to be very knowledgeable about bees." Then my wife told her it was because his dad is a beekeeper. Tracy then proceeded to "volunteer" me to give a presentation on bees that Friday (the 30th of April) since she knew I was taking a vacation day.
So, I spent the week gathering my thoughts and some pictures of bees to present to a class of 2nd graders. I heard that my bee club (Worcester County Beekeepers Association) has a traveling mini-hive that shows people the different parts (since a full-size hive is difficult to carry around), so I arranged to borrow that. I wondered how I could bring in some live bees, but I don't have an observation hive and didn't want to just bring in a jar of bees, for fear someone would let them loose (it would probably be my son to do that...)
So, I gave my presentation to the 2nd grade class. I showed a bunch of pictures of bees, hives, how they live, the different types of bees (workers, drones, and queen), and even showed a piece of the PBS Nature show on honey bees. It took about 1/2 hour, and based on the hands going up and questions asked, it was a success. There were about 25 children, and the principal herself stopped in for part of my presentation.
I put some pictures of the presentation on my blog:
http://stevensbees.blogspot.com/2010/05/bee-presentation.html
All in all, it was a fun activity!
So, I spent the week gathering my thoughts and some pictures of bees to present to a class of 2nd graders. I heard that my bee club (Worcester County Beekeepers Association) has a traveling mini-hive that shows people the different parts (since a full-size hive is difficult to carry around), so I arranged to borrow that. I wondered how I could bring in some live bees, but I don't have an observation hive and didn't want to just bring in a jar of bees, for fear someone would let them loose (it would probably be my son to do that...)
So, I gave my presentation to the 2nd grade class. I showed a bunch of pictures of bees, hives, how they live, the different types of bees (workers, drones, and queen), and even showed a piece of the PBS Nature show on honey bees. It took about 1/2 hour, and based on the hands going up and questions asked, it was a success. There were about 25 children, and the principal herself stopped in for part of my presentation.
I put some pictures of the presentation on my blog:
http://stevensbees.blogspot.com/2010/05/bee-presentation.html
All in all, it was a fun activity!