Here are our plans for this week’s co-op(it won’t all happen in class!):

Letter B  (intro Montessori sandpaper letter B this week)

ASL Signs: B,  bee (ck out the video demo of the word)

Letter sort:  Paper plate with a pocket made of half paper plate and stapled down the center to form a divider. Sort cards with As and Bs into the pockets

B template : glue beans to letter B.  Can also make with bubble wrap : )

Walk the line: Masking tape on the floor will be in the shape of the week (hexagon).

Number of the week 2:

The Two Brothers (Grimm)

2 notebook page – use two paper clips attached or two beans or two bee stickers or make a dividing line from corner to corner and draw a pair of contrasting things in each section (ie sun/moon, two brothers, two natures of God – God/man, 2 testaments of bible)

Color – yellow

Shape: trace hexagons (with pattern block or download block template from net) on yellow paper. Color some in with light brown to show them full of honey just like the beehive. Sort hexagon blocks from other shapes.

Trays:

bean pouring, bean sort, playdough, A and B sort/match

Biscuit and honey for snack.  The children will make biscuits from a tube for snacks. Serve with honey and berry juice. Optional this week – bananas, broccoli, black jelly beans

My favorite bee book is Bees by Deborah Hodges.  Its a Kids Can series book with lots of large graphics that lend themselves to reproduction in notebooks for olders. From this book we are making a model bee from small, med, and large sized stryrofoam balls painted yellow. The small ball is cut in half for the head. The half ball is stuck to the med ball which is stuck (with toothpicks) to the largest ball to make the 3 body sections. Black pipe cleaners make the legs and antennae. Wings are made from wax paper.

This is a big-ish project but very tactile and involves a lot of fine motor skill work as well as providing a good teaching model. You can tape labels to toothpicks to make this a hands on teaching model for elementary kids.

Make a beekeeper’s outfit with large white shirt, rubber gloves, straw hat, and a remnant of netting from fabric store. Use a small window screen for the hive tray.

Fingerplay/song: Baby Bumblebee

Here is the Beehive

Here is the beehive. Where are the bees?
(hold up fist)

Hidden away where nobody sees.
(move other hand around fist)

Watch and you’ll see them come out of the hive
(bend head close to fist)

One, two, three, four, five.
(hold fingers up one at a time)

Bzzzzzzzz… all fly away!
(wave fingers)

Poem:

"How doth the Little Bee" is one Isaac Watts’s didactic poems for children that Lewis Carroll parodies in Alice in Wonderland:

How doth the little busy Bee
     Improve each shining Hour,
And gather Honey all the day
     From every opening Flower!

How skilfully she builds her Cell!
     How neat she spreads the Wax!
And labours hard to store it well
     With the sweet Food she makes.

In Works of Labour or of Skill
     I would be busy too:
For Satan finds some Mischief still
     For idle Hands to do.

In Books, or Work, or healthful Play
     Let my first Years be past,
That I may give for every Day
     Some good Account at last. [1715]

Lit:

The Honey Makers  (note to self – never do a lesson without Gail Gibbons)

The Bee Tree

King Solomon and the Bee (Aidan says, "I LOVE this book!")

Gran’s Bees having just visited my Gram, it was moving

St Benedict or St Brigid

Preschool B activities for later in week

B book

Bee unit with elementary activities