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What's the Buzz? at BestStart Bader Steet
Recently, we were lucky enough to have a special guest come to our Preschool room! Sarah is a local beekeeper and she brought her bees to show and talk to us about her job. This is part of the 'Kids in Nature' programme we were invited to join by the Hamilton City Council, following our excursion to MangakÅtukutuku Stream where we helped plant native trees, which is part of our localised curriculum journey we are on as a centre.
The tamariki were apprehensive at first - they thought the bees would be buzzing around the classroom and ready to sting them! We were pleasantly surprised when Sarah brought them in all contained in a see-through hive, where we could get up close and look at, touch, and hear the bees inside.
Sarah also had child and adult beekeeping suits, which we took turns trying on. The tamariki got to touch and smell the beeswax on the hive trays. Sarah talked to us about how the female bees do all the work - collecting the pollen, making the honey, and having the babies, whilst the male bees only come out for mating time. The female bees also are the only bees with stingers, which was something we were quite surprised about.
We had so much fun learning about the bees. This was wonderful learning for the tamariki, as it helped them to develop working theories for making sense of the natural world around them, and gave them a sense of responsibility for the living world and knowledge about how to care for it.