My Busy Bees

Did you know?

A bee "tongue" is called a proboscis.

We learned this interesting fact this morning amidst oodles of wonderful bee questions from my busy bee boys. They are so curious about bees and have stopped to admire them on several occasions while we've been out and about. So this morning as I was flooded with bee questions, we turned to the computer and had a ball. The first venture was learning about what bees used to collect nectar from the flowers--answer: proboscis. The biology teacher in me had already answered the question, but I had to check and be sure (I would hate to impart incorrect information to my young pupils! :)

We progressed from there to YouTube to watch bee videos and learn about the life stages of bees. Pretty cool... The boys were engrossed and enjoyed learning that bees go from egg to larvae "worm" to pupa to baby bee in development. We even were able to catch a few videos of hatching bees. Their fave video of all, though, was of a beekeeper marking the queen bee. Perhaps I have some future beekeepers on my hands?! I wish there was a local bee farm we could visit. I found this, but still have to do more hunting...

Just minutes ago I heard the following as the boys played with Play-Doh at the kitchen table:

M: Look, T, Lightning McQueen is a worm in a cocoon ready to become a bee. (The car is covered in pink play-doh.)

T: Cool.

A little while later, this tiny critter came to life from little hands:

Amazing how these precious lessons emerge from our day-to-day.

Don't say it too loudly, but perhaps we did a little homeschooling of our own today?

Pretty cool, indeed.

I hope you all enjoyed a blessed Memorial Day weekend. We had such fun hosting friends of ours passing through on their return to New York. I plan to get those pics up and running soon.

Blessings for a brilliant Tuesday,