Maggie’s
Activity Pack
Name __________________________
Date ___________________________
‘Bee’ a Math Whiz!
Pollen is a fine powder in a flower. It is used to fertilize another flower. This
produces seeds. Transferring pollen from one flower to another is called
pollination. This can be done by insects, hummingbirds, bats, and even the wind.
Bees and other insects are important to plants because they transfer pollen.
Honey bees pollinate up to 80% of our gardens and crops. They are especially
important for fruits and vegetables.
A honey bee can transfer pollen between flowers as it searches for nectar, a
sweet liquid that is made by plants. Bees collect nectar from flowers. They
process the nectar in their stomachs. They use it to make honey. The bees dry the
honey in the hive’s honeycomb by fanning it with their wings. Their wings are very
fast. They can beat up to 200 times per second. In order for a bee to make one
pound of honey, it would need to collect nectar from about 2 million flowers.
1. Bees visit a huge number of flowers to collect nectar. Two million flowers is a
very large number. Can you think of anything in your neighborhood or city that
has 2 million?
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Beside each question is a small box. Draw a picture that shows something about
the question.
Bees fan the honey they make by beating their wings. See the table below and
answer the questions:
Species
Honey Bee
Small Hummingbird
Large Hummingbird
Wing beats per
second
200
80
10
2. Which species has the fastest wing beat?
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© Maggie's Earth Adventures, LLC 2011. Teachers may reproduce for classroom use.
3. How many wing beats per minute does the
Honey Bee have?
___________________________________
4. In one minute, how many more wing beats will
a Small Hummingbird have than a Large
Hummingbird?
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5. A beehive can produce 100 pounds of honey
in a season. If it requires 500 worker bees to
make one pound of honey, how many bees will
it take to make 2 pounds of honey?
___________________________________
6. A Honey Bee visits many flowers on each trip
it makes to collect nectar. If a particular bee visits
50 flowers on each trip it makes from the hive,
how many trips will the bee need to make in one
day to visit 500 flowers?
___________________________________
7. A Queen bee can lay up to 2500 eggs per day.
If the Queen lays eggs for 2 days, how many eggs
will be in the hive?
___________________________________
© Maggie's Earth Adventures, LLC 2011. Teachers may reproduce for classroom use.
Dear Colleague,
We all know the power of connecting math and writing, but you may have been
wondering how best to do this or even if there are ideas about doing so that you haven’t tried
yet. Studies show that we teachers often connect science and writing or social studies and
writing but don’t always do a good job of this when teaching math. And math can be such a
powerful tool to help students conceptualize the concepts and academic language of math.
If you haven’t paid much attention to the phrase, academic language, you need to watch
for this as it is one of those hot new topics in education. Quite simply, it’s just the technical
vocabulary we use, assuming that children have an understanding of what we mean. For
example, we might ask a child to summarize or even retell a story. The words summarize and
retell might be unfamiliar to the child. This is something we will be asked to consider as we plan
lessons.
You can help assure your class knows the academic language of math by having them
create their own thesaurus after each math lesson. What new terms were they exposed to? How
might these terms connect with vocabulary they already know? Remember, this is a not a
dictionary. You are asking children to make connections between previously known words and
new terminology. Another great plan is to have children sketch their ideas. That is why we have
provided the open-ended boxes – we hope your students will draw what is in their heads!
It’s always fun to start the day with a one sentence piece of writing about the previous
lesson. Ask children to keep it short and snappy but don’t merely ask for a review. Make
students put on a “writer’s hat” and connect the math concept to another part of their life. For
example, “Dividing is what I need to do when my friend comes over to build with Legos.” This
way you encourage children to connect math with their own lives.
Another fun but meaningful math/writing activity to consider as we approach the end of
the school year is to ask each child to write a math autobiography. Have them page through the
text and recall all those math units. Share the stories, “My Math Life During _____ Grade” (insert
the grade you teach). What a fun way to review the year and to help children connect all they
studied.
Happy teaching,
Kathy
Answer Key: (Please note that while some questions such as #2 may appear to be “easy” they
have been chosen to be sure all children understand the academic language.)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Suggested responses: insects, blades of grass, etc.
Honey Bee
200 wing beats
70 wing beats
1000 bees
10 trips
5000 eggs
Goals:
The activity encourages children to consider the importance of bees in our world. Math problems
illustrate the work of bees, including the need for them to act as pollinators. The Dear Colleague
letter discusses the connection of math to other parts of the curriculum along with the necessity
of considering academic language as we plan lessons. Primary and intermediate versions of this
activity are available. A companion Emergent level activity is also provided. All correlate with the
Number and Operations Strand and the Problem Solving Strand of NCTM’s standards.
© Maggie's Earth Adventures, LLC 2011. Teachers may reproduce for classroom use.