homeschooling preschool – Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs..

This week was bee week! I was really looking forward to this one. I might say that about all of them though, as I am the one who really picks the themes…

This week we had some great activities, and great books, including our new read aloud of Winnie-the-Pooh! We started Sunday by going in search of bee hives – I thought I knew where one or two were but they turned out to be empty this year.

On Monday we started with the letter H, for honey and hive, played a memory match vocabulary game, talked about the different types of hives, and “created” a hive out of Honeycomb cereal. Oh and snacked on some honeycomb cereal with drips of honey on it, which was as sticky as it sounds.

Tuesday, we continued working on the letter H and vocabulary, did some sorting and pattern work, and started our fun counting book, complete with little wooden bees. In the afternoon we set up a pollination creation garden, where Wyatt created a little garden (inspired by our Monet’s waterlilies art from pond week) and I filled two of the flowers with powdered Tang to “bee” the pollen. Then we dipped a paintbrush in water, and used it to transfer the pollen from flower to flower. It turned out really cute!

Wednesday was such a sticky hot day, and not from honey but from humidity (another H word!) We did some table work, planted some seeds to grow a pollinator garden, then made homemade honey playdough, which was really fun. Wyatt loves to pretend bake and cook (and really help bake) so this activity was a hit.

Thursday I reserved for music and reading and poetry exclusively. It was a fun day! We listened to Flight of the Bumblebee, talked about the waggle dance that bees do to tell the other bees where to find flowers, and read some poems and rhymes. Friday we were going to make honey soap but decided to save it for Saturday when Billy could participate. So look for that update on my Instagram!

Next week we are going to take a little break, but then resume again the following week. Wyatt missed a month of school or so with the COVID shutdown and I didn’t start working with him right away, so we are going to keep working over the summer, with small breaks.

Resource Roundup!

Twig and Moth – Collection of Bees

Fun with Mama – Bumble Bees

Mrs. A’s Room – Bees Mini Unit

Preschool Discoveries – Bees

Books Read:

(This section contains Amazon and Usborne affiliate links)

This week I went crazy with the book buying. I love love love our copy of Winnie-the-Pooh and I wanted it to be a special one. If you were going to pick just one or two books though, I would go with Why Do We Need Bees? and Follow that Bee. Although Are You a Bee is really good too!

Bee by Britta Teckentrup || Summertime in the Big Woods || Why Do We Need Bees || Follow That Bee || Are You a Bee || Honey || Winnie-the-Pooh

Other Media Consumed:

Scout and the Gumboot Kids – The Case of the Buzzing Sweet Maker (Season 1, Ep 1)

Caitie’s Classroom – Bees

Maddie Moate – Beekeeping with Maddie Moate

And that is about it! It was a really fun week, filled with so many good reads! I feel so much more knowledgeable about bees myself now! If you have any questions about the materials I used or how I adapted them, let me know. You can comment here or send me an email!

This week our theme was plants and gardens! We needed a break from our insect friends, although we start again with them soon. We apparently like bugs in our family.

This was a fun week, and so seasonal to what we are doing around our house as well. Our seeds that we planted a few weeks ago are sprouting so this was good timing – hmm, almost like I planned it..

We learned about the parts of a plant, the life cycle of a plant, and then talked about what sorts of plants we can eat. We worked on numbers and math and the letter F, on sequencing and matching, and on writing and fine motor skills as well.

I really dig our Kandinsky Circles Flower art project! I have stumbled into finding different projects for our weeks that are based on famous artists. We have done a Matisse snail, now these.

Then today I decided to do a special mini-unit day about strawberries! It is the new moon for this lunar cycle, the Strawberry Moon, so I thought it fit very nicely! It dovetailed nicely into our lessons about plants, and strawberries are just sort of fun and cheery, which we needed on this gloomy rainy day.

I am in love with this art project too. We used his little hands and he dabbed on the yellow paint with his fingers. We also read Audrey Wood’s book The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear. Such a fun book! I also appreciate the fact that our strawberry plant cooperated and produced flowers for us today.

It was a fun week, but I have to say I liked our strawberry day the best.

Resource Round-Up:

Growing Plants by Mrs. Jones Creation Station

Strawberry Patch Printable Pack by Simple Living Creative Learning

Books:

(This section contains Amazon Affiliate links)