10 FREE Resources Exploring Honey

Honey is natures golden sweet delight that never spoils. The following quote is directly from the National Honey Board, I could not have said it better!

“The story of honey is older than history itself. An 8,000-year-old cave painting in Spain depicts honey harvesting, and we know it’s been used for food, medicine and more by cultures all over the world since. But honey isn’t about humans. It’s the natural product made from bees—one of our planet’s most important animals. Honey bees visit millions of blossoms in their lifetimes, making pollination of plants possible and collecting nectar to bring back to the hive. Lucky for us, bees make more honey than their colony needs, and beekeepers remove the excess and bottle it. Just like they’ve been doing since the beginning of time.” – SOURCE: National Honey Board

Honey is the next topic in the Farmer’s Market series of exploration. If you have been following this series then you know we have researched and gathered a collection of free resources for you to explore with your children. We have included online book recommendations, learning videos and free printables.

Books and Honey

There are a lot of books about honey and most of them involve bees. The following is a great sampling of books you can use in lessons or discussions about honey.

The Beeman

The Beeman written by Laurie Krebs is a sweet book about a boy who tells the story about his grandfather, the beeman. This simple rhyming book shares how bee’s make the honey and how the extra they produce is for people to enjoy.

The Honeybee Man

The Honey Bee Man is a lovely book about a man who lives in New York City and cares for some beehives on the roof of his building. I chose this book because the author takes the reader on an imaginative quest as to what the honey will taste like. All honey is not the same and it the taste is dependent on where the bees find their sweet nectar. When I think about where bees are raised I tend to think of a country setting. I like that it is a reminder that even the busting cities give us honey.

The Honey Makers

The Honey Makers by Gail Gibbons is a wonderful book to share with children who are excited and want to learn more about honey bees. This book is recommended for children from the ages of 4 to 8, and I would recommend more on the 7 or 8 years of age is realistic. This is a wonderful book for educators to read before starting any unit on honey and bees.

The Story of The Honey Bee and How Honey is Made

Videos

YouTube has a lot of great videos about bees and honey. These three videos are a cool way to introduce students to the wonderful world of honey bees.

Is it practical to go on a field trip to harvest some honey? Probably not. Let’s take a virtual field trip This is a really cool video about a mother and daughter as they harvest their honey. Kids will love this video and be engaged and want to learn more.

The Dr. Binocs Show is a cartoon version of a science show. This episode is called “How Bees Make Honey.” He shares the process of how bees make honey, including the vomiting process and many other cool fun facts about bees and honey.

Jessi and Squeaks explore how bees gather nectar in the “Busy Bees” episode. They also answer some of the questions kids generally have about bees. By the end of the video the viewer understands the importance of bees and why we should respect them and appreciate bees, as well.

Additional FREE Resources

The last few resources are from some of my peers at Teacher Pay Teacher. Even is you are not a traditional classroom teacher, any educator or parent can download free and/or purchase these teacher created resources from the TpT website.

Kids love to explore bees. Rachel O’Donnell have made a sample of her “All About Bees” science unit available. The freebie includes some posters, a KWL chart and an activity. If your kids are really interested in learning about bees this is one to sample. Thank you Rachel!

Studying bees in other areas can be fun. This resource is a language arts freebie from Kristin Zunker. This could be a fun center for kids to practice long E. This long E word sort comes with many long e words with cute cartoon pictures of little bees. There is also a recording sheet. Thank you Kristin, it was sweet of you to offer this freebie.

This coloring page is simple and practical. After learning about pollination from the study, this can be used as a reinforcement activity. It is also good for differentiation and early finishers. Thank you Live Youth Strong for sharing!

Learning with a Smile has created a color by sight word sheet that goes with any honey bee unit. This is great for early finishers, morning work and independent work. Thank you Learning with a Smile, you rock!

If you like these free resources please consider following these teacher creators. They are always developing new and cool things, for you and I, to share with young learners.

Thank you for taking the time to read and explore this collection of free honey resources. Click the image below for a list of 25 Farmer’s Market themed books, to expand your lesson.