Busy Bees!

This week we learned about bees! Piper was fascinated by all I had to teach her about them and by the end of the week she was pointing out bees to her Daddy and telling him that they were getting nectar from the flowers! In fact, she became so fascinated that I had to often remind her not to get too close as we watched them outside! Also, she was very perturbed by the Baby Bumblebee song initially - why in the world would you ever what to squish a BABY bumblebee! :)

Piper made a Bumblebee 'B'.

Taitum did, too, of course!

She also enjoyed this bee color match activity while Piper counted out the correct number of bees on her honeycomb cards!

They both colored bee pictures from the BEES Science Unit @ McTot.

Piper really impressed me this week with how carefully she did each of the activities I presented to her. She is really beginning to take pride in her work and put some time into making sure it is done right! Its so rewarding to see this progression! I've never made a big deal about it if she showed little interest in an activity or did it quickly just to have it over and done with. In retrospect, I believe it had more to do with the frustration of feeling like she wasn't capable of it. Now she has gained some confidence and is learning in leaps and bounds! And asking for more even after our school time is down! It makes this Mama smile!

Here she is carefully writing out the letter B on a printable from Owen's Family. (They also have several other bug printables that are super cute and worth checking out!)

And in this pic she is showing off her do-a-dot letter 'B'. I was so proud of her for actually perfectly filling in each of the dots to form the letters instead of just going crazy with the markers, as she often does! After this pic, she didn't want to mess up her work so she flipped the page over and had fun dotting the back side!

Because of her love for buttons, Piper was thrilled about this activity - glueing them to the letter 'B'!

Taitum also enjoyed this but spent most of her time trying to remove the buttons from her gluey fingers! It gave me a good laugh and it kept her occupied for a long time! All part of the learning experience, right? (And cheap entertainment!)

This was my favorite artwork of the week:

Piper's monsters! Aren't they just so monster like?!

Lastly, I leave you with a couple links to resources I've found helpful this past week!

A Link: The Homeschool Club's Bees: Preschool Theme Unit

This link is absolutely full of awesome ideas for learning about bees with preschoolers!

A Book: The Magic Schoolbus: Inside a Beehive

These books are so great for teaching young kids about science! We also read the one about ants last week. They are very simple but teach some key things about each subject, more than enough for a 3 year old!

A Video: This is a compilation of the insect section of Life. Piper and I watched all of the insect part together and she was enthralled with it (as was I - simply amazing!). The only 'problem' was that she flooded me with questions the entire time. Questions I could have answered had I been able to hear the narrator over her! Not that I'm complaining! I love her questions but next time, I'll remember to watch it first myself so I can more easily explain things to her...I think having her listen to the narration herself to get the information is something she will have to learn in time.