Caring for our environment

We all welcomed Alex and Jacinta to the Seahorse room. Alex is a Restoration ecologist and education officer from wildplace connect and Jacinta is a Environmentalist and one of our parents. They came in today to talk to us about Bee's and how they influence the eco system.

To start with Jacinta read us the book “ Our friend the bees“ we spoke about where we find bees and the children enjoyed telling Jacinta and Alex their bee stories as well. We then made our own finger bees using pipe cleaners which we wrapped around our finger to make some bright and colourful bees. The children were given a little cup containing some essential oil in it. There was five different scent, and the children had to try and find the other children in the class that matched their scents forming a hive. This was to demonstrate that bees have a great sense of smell, and it is normal how they find their way back to the hive. Once all hives were found we headed to the table to pollinate our flowers that we worked on last week. The children used their finger bee to dip their finger in some coloured chalk and tap in on a fluffy dot on the centre of the flower picture. This left a small mark on the dot. The children were then encouraged to fly to different table's gather chalk and go back to their flower creating cross pollination, we saw this with the different coloured chalk on each table, where the children had visited and let me tell you we had some busy worker bees in our class.

We then headed back to the mat to talk bee facts with Jacinta, did you know bees only live around five weeks and it take 12 bees their whole lives to make a teaspoon of honey!

The children then got to chat with Alex about what other animals help pollinate the eco system and why it is so important for these animals to keep going to help us grow fruit, vegetables and other yummy foods.

To end our time together we got to line up for a sticker and to have a taste of Delicious honey! Lets say most the children liked the taste of honey.

We ended our morning in the side garden looking at the flowers, herbs and vegetable we have growing. The children are learning about how to look after our environment this month and this little visit just sparked the children's curiosity about the world around them.