Teacher sheet · Ages 6–7 · about 45–50 minutes
Busy bees and flowers
Lesson page: echoesof.science/school/bees/ages-6-7/ · Pupil worksheet: echoesof.science/school/bees/ages-6-7/print/
Learning aims
- Bees are insects that visit flowers for nectar and pollen.
- Pollen sticks to bees and is carried to other flowers.
- Pollination lets plants make seeds.
- Many of our foods need insect pollinators.
Lesson plan
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 5 min | Starter: where have you seen bees? What were they doing? |
| 10 min | Read the text together. |
| 20 min | Be a bee experiment. |
| 5 min | Bee or flower? game or the quiz. |
| 5 min | Talk: why do farmers like bees? |
Materials for the experiment
- Two paper flowers (cut out in advance), one yellow and one white
- Yellow chalk
- A fluffy pom-pom or a fuzzy pipe cleaner (the 'hairy bee')
- A smooth plastic bead or a smooth pebble (the 'smooth bee')
- Dark paper to work on
Safety: Keep chalk away from eyes and mouths and do not blow the chalk dust. Wash hands afterwards. An adult cuts out the paper flowers.
Common misconceptions
| Pupils may think… | Actually… |
|---|---|
| All bees live in hives and make honey. | Most kinds of bee live on their own and make no honey. |
| Bees visit flowers to help them. | Bees visit for food; carrying pollen happens because pollen sticks to them. |
| Pollen and nectar are the same thing. | Nectar is a sweet liquid; pollen is a dust that lets plants make seeds. |
Worksheet answers
- Drawing of a bee on a flower with yellow dots of pollen on its body or legs.
- 6.
- Seeds (accept fruit with seeds).
Quiz answers
- What do bees get from flowers? Nectar and pollen. Nectar is sweet; pollen is a yellow dust.[1]
- How many legs does a bee have? Six. A bee is an insect, and insects have six legs.[8]
- Where does pollen stick on a bee? On its hairy body and legs. Pollen sticks to the hairs.[1]
- What can a flower make after pollination? Seeds. Pollination lets the plant make seeds.[1]
- Which of these foods needs insects to pollinate its flowers? Apples. Apples, cherries and pumpkins need pollinators.[2]
Going further
On a warm day, watch a flowering plant in the school grounds for five minutes (look, do not touch). Count how many insects visit and draw one of them.
Sources used in this lesson
- [1] Insect pollination (Natural History Museum, London): reliability High
- [2] Pollinators benefit agriculture (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service): reliability High
- [4] The wonderful diversity of bees (Oxford University Museum of Natural History): reliability High
- [8] What is an insect? (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History): reliability High
Full list with links and a note on each source's reliability: echoesof.science/school/bees/sources/
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