You've probably heard about the "
dances" that bees do to show each other where to find honey? It's really fascinating. We had learned
about this before, and I'd forgotten we even did an activity similar to this one—a
bee dance treasure hunt! It's funny to look at those pictures and see how
little all the children look! This time we did our treasure hunt in two groups, and instead of trying to imitate the actual waggle dance of bees, I just had each group make up any sort of dance move/sign language for communication. For example, one group decided that jumping forward meant "outside," jumping backward meant "inside," waving your arms meant "go left," waving your foot meant "go right," and so forth. Once they had decided what their dance "language" was, they couldn't talk anymore, but only dance to communicate. They took turns hiding the "nectar" treasure (it was actually Lindt truffles this time; yum. You can see the evidence on Goldie's happy face above) and then doing their dances to lead the other "bees" in their group to the treasure.
The older boys did this in a very methodical and workmanlike way, using the minimum fuss possible to find each treasure. And the girls were pretty much the opposite, giggling and wriggling and dancing about as much as they could. :) Little Goldie was SO cute and pleased with herself when she was being the "queen bee." (It's not actually the queen that leads workers to the nectar, of course, but she was SO insistent that she was the queen!) She held her hands up to make a little stinger, and buzzed around the house and yard with great ceremony. I love her.
By the way, if you are worried about the fate of honeybees because of the dreaded Colony Collapse Disorder (and we encountered a TON of hysteria about it a few years ago during our
Honeybee Unit), it may
reassure you to read this.
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