The buzz

The sun is up and shining as are the faces of the students in Divisions 1 and 2.  This past week has been full of excitement and great learning!

Before we begin with the week at a glance, we would like to share some wonderful news with all of you.

With her cuddly new puppy named Dickens (named after her favourite school), Jen has a beautiful smile on and with great reason!  Thankfully, Jen has just recieved a clean bill of health and is now on her way to full recovery!! Yippee!!!  

The week began with the children learning about bee pollination.  Some of the children were asked to be flowers in a garden.

Then, some bees flew to the garden.  The process of pollination was demonstrated as our bees (named Theo and Richie) flew from flower to flower picking up and delivering pollen.

Afterwards, the students attached pictures of things into one of two categories: things that bees pollinate and things that bees do not pollinate.

Then we all went outside to look for things that are pollinated by bees.  We recorded our findings on a sheet of paper.

Because it was such a windy day, there were no bees flying around.  The only thing that was flying was Aubrey's paper!  Can you find it way up in the tree?

This week, the students also learned the "waggle dance".  When bees find pollen, they return to their hive and basically give driving directions to the other bees by doing a waggle dance.  Your child will be able to teach you this dance!

There's nothing sweeter than the taste of honey and we had the opportunity to taste  some that had been collected by bees from many different types of flowers. These flowers were clover, blueberry, blackberry, wildflower, cranberry and fireweed.

Then we decided if we liked or disliked this particular type of honey.

Finally we graphed our favourite.  Which flower do you think the students preferred?

Now that this week is coming to a close on this beautiful, sunny day, we would like to share another exciting tidbit of information.  Mason bees are actually moving into our bee house!  Although Sarah and Olivia painstakingly rolled up paper and inserted them into the holes to make moving in easier for our busy friends, it appears they would rather go with the "westcoast style" of natural wood.  They are actually chewing, shredding and removing the paper from the holes!  Fascinating!  If you look closely, you can see a hole that has already been plugged with mud.  This means that eggs have been laid inside.  Take a look!

Enjoy the sunshine and happy bee viewing!