Bees!

So much has happened this week!

We were making letters in one of our centers. Flora found a new way
to use these pieces!

Thanks to all of our awesome parents for helping
us raise $40,000 through the Boosterthon! Because we received pledges from all 50 states
Mr. Gardner agreed to be taped to the flagpole!

In math, we are working on sorting! We sorted by:

gender

clothes

height

The Bee Ladies came today from Mama Beehive! We absolutely love when they come visit! Check them out here!

Here is a rare find! The Bee Ladies found a wild
hive in an old tree.

Modern day bee hive

This bee hive was used many, many years ago.
These hives are no longer allowed to be used.

The bee ladies do a great job of explaining the many jobs that bees have! All of the worker bees are girls.

These are the housekeeping bees. They are responsible for cleaning all the cells before honey is
placed or an egg is laid. The queen bee will check each cell before she lays an egg. 

The nurse bees take care of all the baby bees.
The baby bees are fed beebread.
**I'm so sorry that the picture is sideways. I edited it several
times and it is still sideways!!

The undertaker bee takes care of the dead bees.

The construction team builds combs for eggs and honey.

The attendants tend to the queen. She is so busy
that she cannot groom or bathe herself. This is
where the attendants come in handy! Ashley is our
queen bee! There is only 1 queen in a hive. If the queen
dies or another needs to be made for a new hive, the queen
decides which egg will be the queen. That baby will only
be fed royal jelly allowing her to become a queen. The
other babies are fed beebread.

The guard bee protects the hive from people and animals. For
example, if a bear comes in to try to eat the bees, she will
head butt him. If he doesn't go away after the 3rd time
she raises her "sword" to signal for other bees to come out and
sting.

The foragers go out to collect pollen, nectar and
water.

This bee comes back to tell others where the food is. The
bee dances to explain the directions.

The drones bees are male. Although they didn't explain this
to the kids, their only option is to mate with the queen. Drone bees
do not have stingers!

Great books about bees!

Oli was the beekeeper! The beekeeper uses smoke to calm the
bees down. This makes them think that a fire is nearby. They gorge
themselves on honey. This makes their bodies curve inward
making it hard for them to sting anyone.

Bees!!

This week we are learning all about bees!

We learned that bees use their long tongue to suck nectar from flowers. This tongue is called the proboscis. We also learned that while bees are sucking nectar, pollen sticks to their legs. When bees fly to other flowers, they leave a little bit of pollen behind! At Mrs. Pfountz's table, we pretended to be bees. We sucked nectar from our flower.

After we drank our nectar, we flew to other flowers. The pollen that stuck to us from the last flower was left on the new flower.

This group is drawing the life cycle of the bee. We learned that all bees start as an egg within a cell. The egg will turn into a larva and then a pupa. Once the bee is fully developed, it eats it's way out of the cell and is ready to be an adult bee!

Thanks to Todo Math for allowing us to be part of their pilot program! We have full access to the math app until the end of 2014.

These kids are making bees out of cardboard and yarn!

These kids are playing the shape fill in game. They are rolling dice and filling in that number of squares. The first person to fill the entire shape is the winner!

I went to visit my in-laws near Roanoke, VA this weekend. My husbands grandfather has an apple orchard there. He kept bee hives to help pollinate his trees. This is one of the old hives that is no longer in use.

September fun!

September has flown by! This month, we learned about colors, apples and fall. Next week, we will begin our bee unit. In math, we are finishing up the numbers 1-10. The students not only learn what the number is but they learn how to put it in a ten frame, add to get that number, tally, and show the number on a dice. We have also started solving problems in our math journals. The math journals allow students to solve problems in many different ways.

Thank you for lunch Chick-Fil-A! Thanks to our awesome parents for making this happen!

We started our guided reading groups! These students are
doing a great job on their first day!

Ethan lost his first tooth!! Wahoo!!