Look at the yellow pollen on this flower!
Dramatize Pollination!! This is an occurrence in nature that is much easier to act out than to try to explain. This year it worked wonderfully in my first grade class and the children understand the process remarkably.
Click here for all the facts about bees and honey!
Objectives:
Counting by tens, Comprehension of the pollination process. Modeling a double-check strategy for addition.
Prior Knowledge:
Some experience counting by tens is needed and they should be able to count to 100 in a chorus with the rest of the class. This activity is an example of quantities more than 100.
Materials :
Focus:
Start a discussion that activates all the prior knowledge your students have about bees. Have a few students act out how a bee would fly from the hive to the tree and back to show that the bee wants to collect pollen from the blossoms on the tree and bring the pollen back to the hive. Also a bee may visit many blossoms and accumulate much pollen on their hind legs before returning to the hive.
Model and reteach:
Next show them a dish of the chalk and the Q-tips. Have a volunteer be a tree with outstretched limbs. In each limb the volunteer has a chalked Q-tip. You model how the bee rubs the clean Q-tip against the colored Q-tip that represents the blossom. Then the bee looks for other blossoms and returns to the hive. Emphasize that trees do not walk! Everyone will get a turn to be the bees. Have the students start making staple hats with the sentence strips that are decorated with crayon ect. While they pursue this art, monitor the comprehension of individual students about what is being portrayed and how they will act out the role of being either a bee or a tree. Use the art time to check that each student understands the plan.
Procedure:
Take the class outside to a open area where they can run safely. Separate the students into groups of orange trees, apple trees and bees. Place the dishes of the appropriate color chalk near the trees . Keep the supply of Q-tips a distance away at the "hive" . The bees take the clean Q-tips to the trees to collect chalk and return the stained Q-tips to a basket near the hive. (the chalk will NOT stain clothing) When they deposit the stained Q-tip they take another clean one to find another tree. Have the students rotate and change roles so that everyone gets a turn in each. When all have had a turn and you have collected a considerable number at the hive, call the class to line up and go back to the classroom.
Development:
For my class this activity was a great introduction to the repetition in counting after 100. They collected 170 Q-tips in 15 minutes.
Close:
Have the students write about anything the activity has inspired. Open their imagination by attributing human characteristics to the trees and bees. How does the world look to a bee that zooms around? What does a bee think when it is all the way inside a big flower? Do the trees want to be visited? What happens to the blossom after a bee has visited? We have heard of busy bees; write a story about a lazy bee. Probe for questions and inquiry. What are your students' next questions?
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