I don't know about your kids, but my kids don't want to think they are "doing school" in the summertime. But Barb at Handbook of Nature Study has started a wonderful Summertime Nature Challenge. This year one of the topics was yellow jackets. (An earlier post can be found here.)
We happen to have a wasp nest that the wasps conveniently built by our front window where we eat our meals. It is in an out of the way location. They are not a threat to us there, and my husband said that we should leave it for awhile and observe it. He thought it might be interesting and informative. We have observed it from one lone wasp doing circles under the eaves, through a small nest being built. Then there were 2. Now there are lots of them.
The first two pictures show what the nest was like on June 5, 2012.
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The following pictures show the nest as it was on June 24, 2012.
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Since the kids are watching for me to break the "summer time no school" pact, I couldn't just pull out the Handbook of Nature Study book and start reading it to them. I had to resort to stealth teaching. I read through the passages in the book several times, until I had familiarized myself with it enough to ask questions of the children. "How does this wasp lay its wings?" (The book said yellow jackets lay their wings along side their bodies, rather than on top. These do that.) "What do their faces look like?" "Can you see yellow and black on their faces?" (The book said yellow jackets have faces with swirls of yellow and black. These have those markings.)
Then at supper the other night, I started talking to my husband--not the kids. "Did you know that only the exterior of the wasps' nest is waterproof? And wasps only build their nests up and down, while bees build with the cells horizontally?"
Whew. Stealth teaching is much harder. But I think I have taught the kids all I can teach them from this study. It's been really fun. Before we started this study, I didn't even know that yellow jackets were wasps and not bees. I just thought they were "aggressive bees."
I am submitting this to The Outdoor Hour Challenge Barb hosts each month.
We happen to have a wasp nest that the wasps conveniently built by our front window where we eat our meals. It is in an out of the way location. They are not a threat to us there, and my husband said that we should leave it for awhile and observe it. He thought it might be interesting and informative. We have observed it from one lone wasp doing circles under the eaves, through a small nest being built. Then there were 2. Now there are lots of them.
The first two pictures show what the nest was like on June 5, 2012.
.jpg)
.jpg)
The following pictures show the nest as it was on June 24, 2012.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
Since the kids are watching for me to break the "summer time no school" pact, I couldn't just pull out the Handbook of Nature Study book and start reading it to them. I had to resort to stealth teaching. I read through the passages in the book several times, until I had familiarized myself with it enough to ask questions of the children. "How does this wasp lay its wings?" (The book said yellow jackets lay their wings along side their bodies, rather than on top. These do that.) "What do their faces look like?" "Can you see yellow and black on their faces?" (The book said yellow jackets have faces with swirls of yellow and black. These have those markings.)
Then at supper the other night, I started talking to my husband--not the kids. "Did you know that only the exterior of the wasps' nest is waterproof? And wasps only build their nests up and down, while bees build with the cells horizontally?"
Whew. Stealth teaching is much harder. But I think I have taught the kids all I can teach them from this study. It's been really fun. Before we started this study, I didn't even know that yellow jackets were wasps and not bees. I just thought they were "aggressive bees."
I am submitting this to The Outdoor Hour Challenge Barb hosts each month.
I can attest that yellow jackets are a lot more aggressive than regular wasps. I got stung pretty bad by yellow jackets one time when I was younger.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry to hear that. I have always thought of them as "aggressive bees," but I have never been stung by one.
DeleteOh no, they are way way way worse than a bee sting. I think yellow jackets actually live in the ground too where as wasps build their nests in the air.
ReplyDeleteThe book we had said that yellow jackets are actually a type of wasp. I never knew that. The only information we had to compare with the wasps in our window was the book I mentioned. There were no pictures, only drawings and descriptions. The descriptions sounded like what we were looking at.
DeleteIt was informative, even if incomplete. My kids are, after all, only 7, 5, and 2. (And I am learning the nature study right along with the children. In some ways, I feel as if all the years of walking in the woods and observing nature have not prepared me for these nature studies. The nature studies are so much more in depth than anything I have done before.)
It is probable that we were looking at another type of wasp, but in so doing we learned a great deal about wasps in general and what yellow jackets look and act like.
How interesting! Sounds like you sure learned lots! I am sure the kiddos did, too!
ReplyDeleteI really did learn a lot. I hope the kids learned something. I had to sneak it in. :)
DeleteWe had to go further with our study as well. Yellow jackets are wasps and not bees. The information I found on the internet said that yellow jackets usually make their nests in the ground and paper wasps do the open celled hanging nests like you have. Here is a link with lots of info:
ReplyDeletehttp://cru.cahe.wsu.edu/cepublications/eb0643/eb0643.pdf
I have learned over the years that everything is a learning process and there is always something new to learn. I think you did an excellent job of stealth nature study and it is exactly appropriate for your children's ages.
Kudos to you for going further to learn more and to share your knowledge. Keep it up! Your children will be such great admirers of nature as they get older.
Thanks Cristy!
Thanks, Barb, for your encouragement. I feel like such a novice.
DeleteWhat a great way to teach! We had a wasp nest disrupted by my son a couple of weeks ago. Two kids got stung and now they notice every single wasp, bee or yellow jacket that attempts to fly near the house! While the experience started badly, my girls have begun asking a lot of questions so I'd better find that Handbook now! Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteOh no! I am sorry your kids got stung. It would be nice if you could extract some good from the experience.
DeleteLove the way you sneaked the learning in :)Thanks for visiting me too!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Wendy. They wouldn't tolerate anything else right now. I am happy to visit your site. It was very interesting.
DeleteStealth Teaching ... Love it! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Eva. And thank you for stopping by my blog.
Delete