Book choices for today:

What If There Were No Bees?   Suzanne Slade
The Leaning Tower, A Kids Guide to Pisa, Italy    Penelope Dyan
E is for Eiffel Tower: A France Alphabet   Helen L. Wilbur
The Honeybee Man   Lela Nargi
A Taste of Honey   Nancy Elizabeth Wallace

Geography: (first circle)

Need for lesson – Europe cards: animals, places, foods, and flags.

Geography 43
Let’s look at some pictures of plants and animals that are common to Europe. We can also look at places that are popular in Europe.
One of these is the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It is in Italy. It is famous simply because it leans. The tower is circular, and made up of eight floors. The outside is covered in marble. The outside of each level has columns and arches. There is a staircase inside with 293 steps leading up from the bottom floor all the way to the eighth floor. The eighth floor contains seven bells. It is a bell tower. Why does the tower lean? It is built on unsuitable ground for such a heavy and tall building the ground underneath it is made up of layers of sand and clay. It has sunk in some places. Plans have been made over the years to stop the tower from leaning any further. It still leans and is visited by people from all over the world.
Another famous place people like to visit in Europe is The Eiffel Tower. This tower is in France. It was designed by a man named Alexandre Gustave Eiffel. It was built to be the entrance of the World Exposition in 1889. The tower is made of steel and took over two years to build. If you want to climb to the top you would have to climb 1665 steps!

Places, Animals, and Foods of Europe (MontessoriPrintShop.com)

Flags of Europe

Eiffel Tower (paper model)

Additional Works:

Coloring Pages
Animals of Europe
Animals of Europe Booklets – These are from MontessoriPrintShop.com. I make them into little booklets and the children use the list of animal names to write them in their booklets.

Coloring Pages

Animals of Europe (Montessori Catalogs)

Animals of Europe – Booklets

Zoology/Botany: (second circle)

Have a review of flowers and bees. A great book to read is, A Taste of Honey by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace. Reminder about fictional stories before you read the book. After reading the story and reviewing how honey is made, enjoy a snack with honey. She also has a cute board game at the end of the book. I think I am going to make one similar to it for the children to have as a work choice, it is nicely done.

Additional Works:

Bee Counting
Flower Matching (from kidssoup.com)
Bee Stamping

Bee Counting

Flower Matching

Flower Matching

Bee Stamping

Practical Life:

Flower Pots – I found these little pots at a craft store and filled them up with play-dough. I made it into a flower arranging work using pots instead of vases.At the time only green play-dough was available. Once this play-dough was hard and not working to hold up stems, I bought black play-dough which looked more like soil.

Pollination Transfer – Children tong the ‘pollen’ from the flower to the hive.

Napkin Rolling – Little flower napkin rings using pieces of felt to roll. These were from one of the schools I worked at.

Flower Pot Arranging

Tongs

Napkin Rings

Art:

Bees in the Meadow – Make little bees and glue or tape them to a small dowel, long craft stick, or straw. Fold a paper plate in half and paint the outside green adding flowers. Make a small cut at the bottom of the plate for the bee on the straw to go through and staple sides of plate shut. the bee can now fly through the meadow.

Honey Comb Beehive – Using Honey Comb cereal children can glue pieces to form a bee hive on a piece of card stock or cardboard. Add some bees flying around with thumbprints or markers.

Bee Headbands – Cut strips of yellow paper long enough to fit around a child’s head. Children can use a black marker to make stripes along the yellow strip. Black pipe cleaners can be taped tot he headband for antennas with an added piece of tissue paper on the ends of the antennas.

Bee in the Meadow

Bee Headband

Songs/Poems:

Six Buzzing Bumblebees (I made this into a work for the poem basket.)
6 buzzing bumblebees flying around a hive
1 buzzes off, and that leaves 5
5 buzzing bumblebees flying near my door
1 buzzes off,and that leaves 4
4 buzzing bumblebees flying around a tree
1 buzzes off, and that leaves 3
3 buzzing bumblebees in the sky so blue
1 buzzes off, and that leaves 2
2 buzzing bumblebees flying by the sun
1 buzzes off, and that leaves 1
1 buzzing bumblebee looking for some fun
It buzzes off, and that leaves none!