West Richmond Preschool

We have all fallen in love with mason bees and the children can tell you lots of interesting facts about them. We will paint our houses next week and get ready to put them at the farm. Needless to say, excitement is high. In the meantime, we are now learning about honey bees. The children are fascinated with bees and are deeply intrigued by these intelligent and well developed insects. We discussed their complex society, the job of each bee, what they eat, honey, royal jelly, life cycle and of course, the stings that are often associated with bees. On Monday, we decided that we would play a bee game on Wednesday whereby we could take on the roles of all the bees in a hive. Of course, every girl said they wanted to be the queen so we decided that we would have a meeting to discuss rules and role assignments. Today, as soon as we opened up the discussion Chloe said she wanted to be the queen bee and Alexa then added that she also wanted to be the queen. Chloe responded with "I

When I think back on the last few sessions, the word that stands out for me is...negotiations. Peer to peer negotiations, teacher to student negotiations, teacher to teacher negotiations. These negotiations have taken on many forms; some peaceful, some adversarial but always with a positive learning outcome. The learning that takes place throughout these processes is extraordinary and I am so pleased that we have the time in class to allow for these processes to take place. I enjoy listening to the evolution of the negotiation. It is like watching a story unfold. It can start in a very quiet, controlled simple manner or it can begin like a volcano suddenly erupting. The middle part can be slow, especially if there is a stalemate. Bodies become agitated, eye contact either intensifies or completely vanishes, voices either increase in volume or are silenced. And then, the moment of some sort of resolution which is either going to make both parties happy, only one happy or both complace

I am in awe of these children. They have retained so much information about pollination, the mason bee life cycle and their homes. They have many answers and even more questions. They have requested to make a bee book project, which we will begin next week. Many children put in their thoughts on how the book should be compiled, what information should be in the book and how it should look. I am thrilled they are designing their own art projects now! Below are a few examples of their replications of how mason bee tubes are filled. Look for nectar/pollen balls, eggs and mud walls. They know the terminology and understand the sequencing-yes, math is in everything! I am so looking forward to exploring these wonderful insects with them next week. They also want to learn about honey bees! Emily