Eric Carle- The Honey Bee and The Robber

I've never included the Honey Bee and the Robber in my Eric Carle unit. I've thought about it before, but by the time we finish with the other stories it's usually May, and that means it's time for fairy tales. However, this year we had an odd two day week due to make-up days from our snow storm in January. This was a great opportunity to fit in this story.

Of course, the first thing that we did was read the book.

Then the students wrote about it. 

I wanted artwork to go next to their writing. I must admit that I came up with this project on the fly. I borrowed a bear pattern from one of my co-workers, and got the honey bees from another co-worker.

I was originally going to have them paint on white paper, but I didn't have enough. Instead I used light brown paper. It ended up working great! The light brown paper with the darker brown paint gave a layered look that reflected the style of illustrations in the book.

I incorporated science into the lesson by teaching my students facts about bees. We learned about their body structure, work habits, and habitat.  

Bee Facts

I had them organize their thoughts using this format.

I worked with the students on editing their work (the above picture was taken before the work was edited). Then they copied it onto lined paper and drew an illustration.

I wanted artwork to put next to the students' facts. This was another project I came up with quickly. I had the bee pattern from another project, and used pattern blocks for the hexagons that make up the honeycombs.

I let the students decide how many hexagons they used (they needed to use at least six), and how many bees they used. They had a lot of fun with this, and I am pretty pleased with the result. When  I do this in the future I will have the students label the parts of the bee.

Bee Adding

We've been working on adding. I would like to come up with an adding math center with manipulatives to use with this unit in the future. For this year, I made an adding practice sheet with a bee graphic on the top.

Up Next: Eric Carle- The Honey Bee and the Robber Buzz Words Activity