To 'Bee' or Not to 'Bee'....What's all the buzzzzzzz about HONEYBEES?

Every school year, in the spring, we study insects in depth in our Kindergarten and 1st grade classrooms. The children LOVE it! They are especially captivated (and sometimes scared) by all the bees we have 'visiting' our playground!  Well, bee-lieve it or not these fascinating insects are really a hit with students! Chances are they have eaten honey on a biscuit or piece of bread or eaten a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios! But they don't know where this delicious food comes from...honey that is....and no, it's not just "from the store"!! They really become great admirers of bees and not so frightened 'cuz they know how to bee-have when they see them and NOT swat at them!
                Here are some fascinating facts to share with your students.

Click {HERE} to download these pages. 

Here are some of our favorite books for read-alouds. They help build background knowledge. Click on the link bee-low the picture to find them at Amazon.com or check out your school or public library! You might be surprised at what you can find about bees! 

Books about Bees

Here is a song about honeybees & honey we wrote.  It is easily sung to the tune "Alouette" and comes with a song chart, song/poem journal take-home page, pocket chart cards for teaching the lyrics and a mini-writing book called "Yum! Yum!".  Students can create their own sentences based on the sentence patterns.  Ex. "I like  hamburgers.  My dad makes hamburgers." or "I like salsa. My mom makes salsa." etc.  

 Click {HERE} to download it at our TPT store. 

Here is a song by Jean Warren that we have been using for many years. It is a fun active song that gets your busy bees up and moving around. There are also stick puppets provided so the children can place their bee puppet on their toes, nose, and arms etc. as they sing the song.  Click {HERE} to download this FREEBIE!

BEE sure to reward your students' reading with a "BEE a good reader" bookmarks.  Click {HERE} to download this file. It comes in color or B/W so you can choose which ones to print. 

It is always fun to sample a few bites of delicious honey when studying bees. Try to get some that is locally made (if you can) and spread it on some crackers or small pieces of bread and enjoy!  

Well, we BEE-lieve you will make a BEE-line to 

download our free files!  We also have some 

Bee-themed products we've created.  Click each picture caption to link to the product page. 

 6 Guided Reading books (at 2 levels) with photos & clipart-C & B/W

Fun song with stick puppets, retelling cards etc.

Sight word Game with EDITABLE cards so ANY words can be added!

Path game practicing "ee" and "ea" words     

Song about farm animals (and BEES!) and the food they provide.

We hope you have a great time studying honeybees!  
We bee-lieve you really will!
Jackie & Kylene

Nonfiction Finds for the Upper Grades

Hi friends! It's Christy from Teaching Tales Along the Yellow Brick Road. I hope you are enjoying your summer break, I know mine is flying by faster than I care to admit at times!

This summer has been busy, but I have found some time to look around for new ideas in the coming school year. One goal, is to incorporate nonfiction more purposefully into the school day. I'm sharing a few of the resources I've found so far (some were tried last year), and I would love to hear of any resources you have utilized before too!

1. Dogo News. Free nonfiction articles for kids, a website started in 2009 by a parent has grown exponentially. The content is kid friendly and engagement. Content is updated regularly too.

2. Erin, shared about Achieve3000 last year and I utilized it several times throughout the year. I was able to access the articles for free using the username and password "CommonCore.Teacher" if you purchase an account, you could assign articles to students, but I made the free version work for me. The best part of this site? You can differentiate! Each article is offered at various lexile leves so that you can give students an article at the level they need!

3. ThinkCera. Another nonfiction article source with some really fun features. The articles are offered at several lexile levels as well as having an audio option! I have several students that need that accommodation, and it's great to be able to access that option straight from the website. With a built in dictionary and the ability for me to add response questions, this site is going to be great I think!

Where else can nonfiction articles be found? 

Scholastic News

Dig: The Archeology Magazine for Kids

The Why Files: Science Behind the News

CNN Student News

I hope this gives you a start in some nonfiction finds for your classroom. Again, if you have other go-to sites, please leave a comment below!

{P.S. Be sure to stop by my blog in the next could of weeks. Celebrating 1,000 followers soon!}