Spring has arrived, and a medium-sized tree in the daycare backyard has started budding flowers. Bees often visit, especially on warm and sunny days. Sometimes, bees fly near the play area, and some children throw sand to scare them away, saying, “It’s scary!”
One day, I saw two children squatting and looking at a bee on the ground. I asked what happened, and they said, “Someone stepped on a bee. Kids just don’t like bees.”
I tried to borrow a picture book about bees from the library but couldn’t find one. So, I made a set of sticky story cards to help children learn how to interact with bees—”Bee Kind, Bee Calm.”
To make it more fun, I also created a finger puppet – a little bee. When telling the story, the child with the puppet could pretend to be a little bee, flying around and landing gently on others before flying away.
During the interactive storytelling, children were excited to act as bees and enjoyed using the hook-and-loop fasteners on the cards. The story itself was a bit educational, but children showed great interest in bees and how to telling the story with aids.
After the story, the children eagerly borrowed the materials to retell the story themselves.
In the afternoon, a bee landed near K while he was playing in the sandbox. K arrived late today and didn’t join the storytelling activity. I softly reminded him, “Be kind, be calm!” He stayed still but made a soft buzzing sound to scare the bee away. The bee soon flew off naturally, and K was thrilled. “I did it!”
Tomorrow, I’ll find time to play the story with K. Maybe it will help him understand bees even more!
All World Relations: the understanding that humans, creatures, plants, trees, and non-living entities, forces, and landforms are all interconnected.
The notion of all world relations is embedded in a common worlds framework and
suggests that all beings and non-living entities are entangled and dependent on one
another (BC ELF, 2019,P15).