Kids and Bees: Resources for Families Sheltering in Place
Originally written for the American Beekeeping Federation’s E-Buzz
As I write this, many of you are currently “sheltering in place” around the country as we take every day as it comes. Most of us have never experienced something like this before, and it’s not easy finding the tools you need to navigate through this time. My sweetheart’s littles are four and six, and while they love being at home with us 24/7, the exhaustion factor for us, and boredom for them is at an all-time high.
Thankfully, there are resource lists popping up to provide parents with ideas to keep the family learning and having fun together. I’d like to add to this trend with a few of my own favorite things to watch and do from home. I know my list isn’t exhaustive, so if there is something that you’ve discovered or created, please send it to sarah@beegirl.org, and I’ll share it on our Kids and Bees Facebook page.
Books
Beekeeper's Lab: 52 Family-Friendly Activities and Experiments Exploring the Life of the Hive
Fill the year ahead with weekly activities from around and about the hive, including art projects, recipes, experiments, garden activities, and more! If you keep bees or are interested in keeping bees, Beekeeper's Lab is the book for you. Filled with 52 beekeeping and hive-inspired projects to keep you involved with your bees and hive all year long. The tutorials are brief, accomplishable, and rewarding. Try a new technique each week with how-tos and sidebars with tips that are perfect for including the whole family! Beekeeping is fun and educational for the whole family to enjoy and is a highly impressive skill to possess!
The Amazing Adventures of Sweet Sophia
Meet Sophia, a sweet little girl who travels through time meeting famous people from history and learning about the times in which they live. Along with her trusty stuffed bee, Bizzy, she also learns about and shares information about honey bees.
Kids LOVE looking for queen bees in a pattern of worker bees! Journey into the heart of the hive and meet the incredible queen bee! In QueenSpotting, experienced beekeeper and professional “swarm catcher” Hilary Kearney challenges readers to “spot the queen” with 48 fold-out visual puzzles — vivid up-close photos of the queen hidden among her many subjects.
The Bees in Your Backyard: A Guide to North America's Bees
This is my favorite book for doing a little research before a grand backyard bee hunting adventure. The Bees in Your Backyard provides an engaging introduction to the roughly 4,000 different bee species found in the United States and Canada, dispelling common myths about bees while offering essential tips for telling them apart in the field.
The Little Book Of Bees: An Illustrated Guide to the Extraordinary Lives of Bees
Bees continue to fascinate and charm us all – from novice gardeners and nature-lovers to dedicated environmentalists – and today, bees need our help more than ever. Discover the story of these incredible creatures, with The Little Book of Bees.
A lovely book for story time before bed. Follow the flight of a honey bee as she searches for nectar to sustain her hive and, along the way, pollinates flowers to produce seeds and fruits.
The Thing about Bees: A Love Letter
A LOVE POEM FROM A FATHER TO HIS TWO SONS, AND A TRIBUTE TO THE BEES THAT POLLINATE THE FOODS WE LOVE TO EAT. "Sometimes bees can be a bit rude. They fly in your face and prance on your food." And yet... without bees, we might not have strawberries for shortcakes or avocados for tacos! Shabazz Larkin's The Thing About Bees is a Norman Rockwell-inspired Sunday in the park, a love poem from a father to his two sons, and a tribute to the bees that pollinate the foods we love to eat. Children are introduced to different kinds of bees, "how not to get stung," and how the things we fear are often things we don't fully understand. Shabazz Larkin made his picture book illustration debut with Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table, followed by his author/illustrator debut with A Moose Boosh: A Few Choice Words About Food, both named American Library Association Notable Children's Books and published by READERS to EATERS. He is a multi-disciplinary artist and an advertising creative director. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife and two sons.
Films and Video
In the steep mountain jungles of Nepal’s Hongu river valley, members of the isolated Kulung culture have risked their lives for generations scaling dangerous cliffs to collect a wild and toxic honey. Deep and dark, the film glides through a misty world of forest spirits, dreams, and woodsmoke to share the story of the leader of the harvest and his final journey.
This film has subtitles, so might night keep the attention of the little ones, but is beautifully shot none-the-less. Nestled in an isolated mountain region deep within the Balkans, Hatidze Muratova lives with her ailing mother in a village without roads, electricity or running water. She’s the last in a long line of Macedonian wild beekeepers, eking out a living farming honey in small batches to be sold in the closest city – a mere four hours’ walk away. Hatidze’s peaceful existence is thrown into upheaval by the arrival of an itinerant family, with their roaring engines, seven rambunctious children and herd of cattle. Hatidze optimistically meets the promise of change with an open heart, offering up her affections, her brandy and her tried-and-true beekeeping advice.
TED ED: The Case of the Vanishing Honeybees
In the past decade, the US honeybee population has been decreasing at an alarming and unprecedented rate. While this is obviously bad news for honeypots everywhere, bees also help feed us in a bigger way -- by pollinating our nation's crops. Emma Bryce investigates potential causes for this widespread colony collapse disorder.
Games
The game is now live Kickstarter. Click here to pre-order it and support the campaign! Pollinator Popcorn is the game that teaches you how to recognize and admire the unsung heroes of our world: pollinators! Players choose between two card decks that will challege them to either identify a pollinator or answer a trivia question. Each right answer earns you a card. Make it to 12 and you win the game, but watch out— other players can steal from you! You’ll also have the chance to gamble cards which could set you back or hand you the victory. In the meantime, you can play a free, on-line version here.
I played a prototype of this game, and was really impressed with the real-world beekeeping knowledge that went into the design! Victory never tasted so sweet! It’s a beautiful spring day, the flowers are in bloom and there is an epic battle waging beneath the petals. Honey Wars is a card and dice game with a strong "Take That" mechanic. You and your fellow players control hives of bees, working to build your army while blocking your opponents’ efforts to do the same. Use cards to attack your opponents, defend your hives, harvest honey and WIN THE WAR!
Puzzle fanatics will get a buzz from this challenging jigsaw puzzle of the queen bee in her hive. This ambitious image of one of nature’s most wondrous patterns will confound even the most experienced puzzlers. It’s easy to get lost in the patterns of the honeycomb!
The Honey Bee Tree Game is a quick-play game that teaches concentration and cooperative play! Players take turns pulling leaves from the oak tree, just don't wake the bees or they will fall out into your tray!
Curriculum
The Kids and Bees Handbook is a guide for educators to begin, or build on, their own kid’s bee-centered lessons, programs, and events. Author Sarah Red-Laird, American Beekeeping Federation Kids and Bees Program Director, shares stories from her adventures working with kids and bees across the US and beyond. She highlights some facts about the important roll youth can play in bee conservation, addresses those awkward-to-answer questions (stings, mating, the bee crisis, etc.), and gives easy steps to create your own kids program to engage our littlest potential bee advocates. Teachers and beekeepers will find an abundance of ideas and inspirations nestled in this handbook.
From lessons on the environment and zoology, to nutrition and biology, a beehive is a science class in a box. Educators like you play an critical role in the recovery of our bees. We're making all of our educational materials 100% free of charge so that you can educate youth about the importance of bees and what can be done to save them.
Our lesson plans are designed to help you convey the wonder of the honey bee to your students. The five lessons can be used as we have presented them, in any order, or individually. The lesson landing pages include high level summaries, links to resources, and guided activities; the full lesson PDFs include more background for teachers, all the readings and resources, and step-by-step instructions for lesson delivery.
This is a program local to Southern Oregon, to help parents and teachers give kids activities to do in the backyard. However, plenty of the lessons are applicable to backyards beyond Oregon. Over a dozen local organizations and education providers are coming together for “Outside Everyday” an online education series to provide tools and inspiration to help get your students outside and exploring. Launching Tuesday, March 24th, we will share videos from local SOREEL educators on this facebook page. Here is my first lesson, “Bees in Your Backyard.”
Additional Resources (scroll to the bottom of the page)
Many local bookstores and game shops are still open and doing free home delivery, or curbside pick-up. I encourage you to try your local shops first, before ordering on a large outdoor retailer. Often times our local shops can deliver same day! Our small communities need our help now, more than ever.
I do wish you all the best in there challenging times, and hope for an abundance of health and honey in your lives.