Nature Gratitude: Bees

One component of our weekly Class Meeting is Nature Gratitude.  We go around our circle, and each of us shares something we noticed in nature that week that we were grateful to see.  Unlike Joys and Sorrows, Nature Gratitude is not optional.  Everyone must share a nature observation s/he appreciated.  This accomplishes more than one goal.  It pushes shy members of our group to participate, to venture out of their shells just a  little bit, and to practice oral presentation skills.  However, it also pushes children to notice the natural world around them.  We are lucky on our campus that every classroom opens to the outdoors.  Our classroom opens onto a beautiful courtyard, filled with vegetable gardens and a butterfly garden.  In our travels from the classroom to recess/PE, lunch in the cafeteria, or dismissal at the front of the school, we regularly see butterflies, dragonflies, praying mantids, bees, ladybugs, birds, squirrels, and more.  When we start the year, the Nature Gratitude portion of our meeting can take a long time, as we wait for each child (especially our new first years) to think of something from nature that s/he appreciates.  However, as the year progresses, it is wonderful to see that most children have noticed (and remembered) something amazing to share.



Bees Summer 2015

This week, I am grateful for pollinators.  In particular: bees.  Last year, a colony of bees appeared in a hole in a pine tree in my parents' front yard.  At first, we worried a frightened neighbor would notice them and spray insecticide on them.  Fortunately, the people who have looked up to notice them have just been curious.  The temperament of this colony seems pretty docile, not aggressive at all.  It's fascinating to stand under the tree and watch their busy work. 


Bees Summer 2016







It is interesting to watch the colony ebb and flow.  At this time of the school year, when we are saying goodbye to our third years and preparing to welcome new first graders to our community, the cycle seems especially relevant.  The bees are limited by their space in the tree.  As their colony grows, periodically they swarm with piles of bees on the surface of the hive, and then they split the colony.  A portion of the bees fly away to establish a new colony somewhere else, and the remaining bees stay behind to begin the process of rebuilding their community. 

"Cycles do what cycles do.  They build, rise, crest, and begin again.  That is the nature of schools.  Love dearly each beginning.  Mourn dearly each good-bye.  Begin again."

--Catherine McTamaney, The Tao of Montessori

You can observe bees up-close in the Cockrell Butterfly Center at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.


There's a Book for That!
The Bee Tree by Patricia Polacco
The Bee Man by Laurie Krebs
The Life and Times of the Honeybee by Charles Micucci
The Magic School Bus Inside a Beehive by Joanna Cole
Kids Discover: Bees