Flowers & Bees

Learning goal: Plants have structures that serve different functions in growth, survival and reproduction.

• Reading= The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle, What Does Bunny See? by Linda Sue Park, Drat that Fat Cat! by Pat Thomson, The Beeman by Laurie Krebs and The Reason for a Flower by Ruth Heller. Letter of the day: F is for flower.
• Science= Experiment with flowers! Dissect several flowers sorting their parts into a muffin tin. Find roots, stems, leaves, petals, pollen-givers (anthers) and pollen-receivers (stigmas). Compare stems to a straw used for drinking. Then add food coloring to water and observe white flowers drink the water and slowly turn color. Let sit over night. Alternatively, make a beehive using a balloon and paper mache. Learn about bees and the making of honey.
• Art= Glue a seed to paper. Invite the child to draw a flower that might grow from that seed. Encourage them to include all the flower parts you just discovered. Add fingerprint bees. Alternatively, make a gift of flowers for your mother for Mother’s Day. String foam flowers and straws (cut is small pieces) to make a lei. Or, make tissue paper flowers with pipe cleaner stems and decorate a tin can vase to put them in.
  
• Play= Make biscuits and eat them with honey, go for a walk to pick some flowers for your mom, or play with straws. For example, blow air through a straw to move an object (e.g., a toilet paper tube) across a finish line.

Fun fact: Honeybees must visit between 100 and 1500 flowers in order to fill their stomachs with nectar (liquid made by flowers). In the process of going from flower to flower, pollen gets stuck on the bee and is rubbed off on the flowers. This pollinates many flowers, fertilizing them and producing seeds. In one year, a colony of bees eats between 120 and 200 pounds of this modified nectar we call honey.