Wrap Up: The Bee Tree

We buzzed our way through the Five in a Row unit on Patricia Polacco's The Bee Tree over the past couple of weeks!  Despite quite a nasty interruption from the influenza virus, we made it through almost everything I had planned, and really enjoyed this row!

The highlight of this row for us was a field trip to Baton Rouge to tour the children's exhibitions at the American Beekeeping Federation's annual convention.

trying on beekeeper gear

live bees!

dress up! Jono held the flower for bees H&C

made bee hats and rolled beeswax candles

looked at more beekeeping equipment and asked a TON of questions 

and we wandered across the street from the convention center to check out the river!  

For social studies, we found Michigan on the map, discussed peninsulas, and then colored and labeled a map of Michigan and the surrounding great lakes.

In language arts, we just reviewed onomatopoeia.  We checked out favorite onomatopoeia book out of the library again and enjoyed it.  I should just buy that one--I think this is the 3rd time we've checked it out!

For art, we did some fine arts.  In the book, a group of traveling musicians joins the race to follow the bee to its tree.  They were string players, so we listened to the strings section in The Story of the Orchestra.

We had a lot of fun with math.  We spent some time nailing down shape names and description for those harder shapes, starting with hexagons, of course.  We played some free printable games that were super fun for this--Shape bingo and Name that Shape.  We played the Fill in the Hexagon Game on a different day using our pattern blocks.  Then we used that hexagon pattern block to stamp honeycomb!

my favorite part is Jono's name, with each letter made into a bee (bottom left)

For science, of course, we learned about bees. We read several books about bees, beehives, honey production, and beekeeping.  I had them paint these bees and then tell me what body parts they remembered the names of for labeling. 

In non-FIAR news, we began a new artist for picture study.  We studied our last bird painting by John James Audubon and did our first work by Claude Monet.  We read the book Claude Monet: the Painter Who Stopped the Trains and then studied one of the pictures mentioned in the book.  The kids really enjoyed both the story and the painting.  I think this artist will be popular!

Jonathan also started a new extracurricular this  month.  He's playing Upward basketball this winter.  He has had two practices and one game and has loved every minute of it so far! 

Thank you for following along with us!