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We visited Kay Buffaloe's XXXX grade class at The Edgewood School (???) in the Pennsbury School District. Like Toni Newman's class, Kay and her students were working with STC's Plant Growth and Development kit. Kay's class had already used their dried bees to pollinate their plants, and as a result, many of their plants had produced large seed pods. Today, the class was zeroing in on the role of bees in pollination by learning all about bees—their function in the world of plants, and their anatomy. To further the bee anatomy exploration, they were creating model bees.
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Kay produces a bee stick and reminds the class of
the work they did with their bees earlier in their
studies before launching into today's activity.
Together, Kay and the students read parts of a book
about bees as an innovative reviewing method.
Interspersed with the reading, Kay asks the students
questions about what they've already discovered about
bees in their previous explorations.
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The project for the day begins: the students create
their own bees out of easy craft supplies: egg carton
pieces for the head and thorax (an inspired
innovation that veers from the kit), construction
paper for the abdomen, and pipe cleaners for the legs
and antennae.
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Kay talks about the bee creation with a student.
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 You can't have a bee without an abdomen! This student prepares to attach the abdomen to the thorax.
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Unfortunately, compound eyes are not easily
reproduced with a marker, but this student creates a
good representation.
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 This student carefully traces the wing patterns to create a pair of forewings and hindwings for the bee model.
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The students had a wonderful time creating pollen
baskets for their bees, which involved vigorously
rubbing yellow chalk on a piece of paper, and then
rubbing cotton balls into that rubbed chalk to fill
the cotton balls with "pollen."
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 A finished bee, complete with all of its anatomical parts.
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After students completed their bees, they flew them
over to the "hive." Kay's class made their hive even
more special by gluing honeycomb-shaped cereal to
their hexagonal honeycomb cut-outs.
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 After all of the bees are completed, Kay gathers the class together for a wrap-up discussion of what they discovered about bees today.
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