Bee Dances

Before I get started on today's activities, here are a couple of pictures I took of Austin yesterday.  He came out of the back bedroom where we keep the dress up box looking like a knight!

He was very proud of himself but the helmet was too big and kept sliding off and the shield, which is wood, was kind of heavy.

The boys got to wear their bee shirts today!

This morning we went outside to play.  We are lucky because our back deck stays shady until about 11:00 and it wasn't too hot.  Gavin and Austin played with knights (what else?).  Gavin got this old book about the Crusades and he is insisting I read it to him even though it's written at a high school level.  He doesn't understand most of what is going on but he keeps asking me to read the next chapter.  As a result, I am learning all about the Crusades!  As you can see, the book follows us everywhere.

Back inside Gavin worked on a puzzle.

We started a couple activities that will go in a bee lapbook we are going to make (similiar to the owl lapbook we did).  Then we played a bee game.  Gavin put on his antenna he made last week and carried a probiscis (bee tongue i.e. tweezers) and we pretended to be bees in search of pollen.  Notice the grocery bag on his leg and arm?  That would be his pollen sack.  So the point of the game was I buzzed into the hive (living room) and did a bee dance and he had to interpret the dance to find out where the flower (bowl) was that had the pollen (ping pong balls or marbles).  Our tv armoire was the sun (it's all based on the sun's location).  Then he had to use his probiscis (tweezers) to place the pollen into his pollen sack.  Gavin did a good job and got really excited about this game.  Austin was not so sure what to make of it but he knew he did not want antenna on his head.

Then Gavin flew around the hive being a bee for a while.

Gavin decided to put the pollen into cells (the spaces in the honeycomb).

Then he flew around the hive and stung lots of enemies.

We read these books today.

We also read 'Bambi' from our short stories book.  I'm pretty sure it's just the first chapter.  Gavin asked if I could get the whole book to read.  I'm not sure it's going to happen.  We also read a short story about a lady who tamed hummingbirds enough they would land on her and eat out of her hand.