A presentation to school kids

[rje66]

Hi, l hope to put together a presentation for kids, aged about 7-9, through our local association next year. Just to keep ahead of my self i was wondering if any one has done si ilar and how you structured it and any unknown pitfalls you encountered. All advice and comments welcome☺☺☺

 

[nantmoel]

I did a presentation to a group of children and their parent a few weeks ago, a top tip is, take a jar of honey for them to taste, but purchase a load of plastic coffee stirrers, I had a pack of 500 for about £2, tell them no double dipping!

Keep it simple, show them the difference between bumble bees, wasps and honey bees. Show them the different types of bees - Queen, worker and drone. Take a complete hive that you can show them how beekeepers keep bees. They love looking at bees with pollen on their legs (lots of pictures).

A few simple pointer but is worked well of me, then I was a school teacher for 34 years!

 

[rje66]

All good advice, thanks.
So would a presentation last roughly 30 mins, 45, hour???
How many kids is too much in a group, prob will have a groups of 28 ish,
For that amount is 3 on the presentation team about right.
Did you have different stations where smaller groups moved around to???
We will have an observation hive.
Was hoping not to use too much in the way of a power point type of presentation, but if needs must we can.

 

[nantmoel]

All good advice, thanks.
So would a presentation last roughly 30 mins, 45, hour???
How many kids is too much in a group, prob will have a groups of 28 ish,
For that amount is 3 on the presentation team about right.
Did you have different stations where smaller groups moved around to???
We will have an observation hive.
Was hoping not to use too much in the way of a power point type of presentation, but if needs must we can.

30 mins is about right for younger children, it would be great if you could split the group up into 3, if there are going to be 3 of you presenting, I would move the children to each station every 10 mins. I didn't mention an observation hive as I thought it was soon! I would not entertain a powerpoint with young children, lots of visual stimuli for them, and as much 'hands on' as possible. Remember things will get broken!! Do you have any small bee suits, they love dressing up.

Hope this helps you a little further.

 

[rje66]

That's all the type of information I'm after.thanks
Kids beesuit......will search around,

 

[pargyle]

Kids are fascinated with comb ... I do a few 'events' with my association every year and spend hours talking to children about bees .. they usually know more than you think they will as there have been lots of bee initiatives over the last few years... but a few bits of fresh comb that they can handle (it will get squashed and broken so don't take your prize frame !) is worth ten pictures and it binds the whole bee story together.

Be prepared for some quite searching questions ... Death and Stings feature highly in kids questions ... Why do they die after stinging you ? Why do boy bees die after mating ? Where do they die ? What happens when bees die ? How long do they live ? Better get your answers ready ... even 4 year olds have some pretty interesting questions.

They also like the 'interesting bee facts' ... How many bees in a hive? How many eggs the queen lays in a day ? How far do bees have to fly to make a jar of honey ? etc.

They also like to know how we get honey out of the comb so, at the last event, we had an extractor there so they could see .. albeit without the honey.

The 'problem' you will find is that you won't really be 'presenting' as you would to adults .. you will get the questions as they think about them and you have to be flexible enough to dodge around from one part of your talk to another. If you can engage with them it will be really easy but ... You will go home exhausted ... !!

 

[daroco]

30 mins is about right for younger children, it would be great if you could split the group up into 3, if there are going to be 3 of you presenting, I would move the children to each station every 10 mins. I didn't mention an observation hive as I thought it was soon! I would not entertain a powerpoint with young children, lots of visual stimuli for them, and as much 'hands on' as possible. Remember things will get broken!! Do you have any small bee suits, they love dressing up.

Hope this helps you a little further.

30 minutes? The 9 years olds I teach are more than capable of sitting through 50 minute lessons - and if you're doing lots of activities that are varied you can probably stretch it out a bit longer! I guess a lot depends on the context of where you are doing the talk - it's likely they may have an amount of time they would like you to fill.

 

[B+.]

30 minutes? The 9 years olds I teach are more than capable of sitting through 50 minute lessons - and if you're doing lots of activities that are varied you can probably stretch it out a bit longer! I guess a lot depends on the context of where you are doing the talk - it's likely they may have an amount of time they would like you to fill.

The rule of thumb teachers use is their chronological age plus 15 minutes for their attention span.
One thing kids love to do is "dressing up". So, take a bee suit and get the teacher to pick one child to dress up as the beekeeper. The teacher will know which child can be sensible and you will have made an instant friend.

 

[nantmoel]

30 minutes? The 9 years olds I teach are more than capable of sitting through 50 minute lessons - and if you're doing lots of activities that are varied you can probably stretch it out a bit longer! I guess a lot depends on the context of where you are doing the talk - it's likely they may have an amount of time they would like you to fill.

Yes 50 mins of a well (hopefully) structured lesson, perhaps a lesson that you have taught over and over and refined when things have not gone according to plan! I've been there hundreds of times - there is nothing worse than 'dying' on your feet in front of a group of children. We are talking about perhaps someone who perhaps does a presentation once a year not 5 times a day.

 

[djg]

Hi rje66,

See my blog post about a school visit earlier this year:

http://www.bermondseystreetbees.co.uk/2015/03/back-to-school/

I hope that you'll have as much fun as we did. And look what the children sent us in return:

http://www.bermondseystreetbees.co.uk/2015/04/10-out-of-10/

 

[charlievictorbravo]

If you think you have more time than you can easily fill, you could get them to re-enact various bee manipulations, after you've explained the what, when and why.

So you could start of with a natural swarm - your appointed queen leaves a "larva" behind and leaves the whole group with some bees to form the swarm.

You could do an artificial swarm with your "beekeeper" moving the "queen" etc around, with you giving the commentary and stage directions.

CVB

 

[rje66]

Hi rje66,

See my blog post about a school visit earlier this year:

http://www.bermondseystreetbees.co.uk/2015/03/back-to-school/

I hope that you'll have as much fun as we did. And look what the children sent us in return:

http://www.bermondseystreetbees.co.uk/2015/04/10-out-of-10/

Thanks all for help

Great blog and nice observation hive. Lots to keep in mind.

From a teaching pov i have taught evening classes so am aware of the "dying on your feet" situation. Wife is a teacher and had me organised with lesson plans, content and time allocation to each topic. Worked a treat.

So how do you explain the mating flight to 8 year olds????..

 

[djg]

rje66

Ah, the Mating flight. Yes, I took a deep breath and told it how it is. In two brief sentences. No issue for rural 8-year-olds (I don’t think that I’d have got away with it in front of urban 13-year-olds!)

One other thought has occurred to me – be sure to obtain the Head Teacher’s permission if you wish to publish any photos of your visit with the pupils in them – there may be a list of pupils who do not wish their images to be distributed.

Good luck!

 

[REDWOOD]

It's funny how kids are always fascinated with the concept of death, how many none religious parents say "you go to heaven" ?

 

[rje66]

rje66

A thought has occurred to me – be sure to obtain the Head Teacher’s permission if you wish to publish any photos of your visit with the pupils in them – there may be a list of pupils who do not wish their images to be distributed.

Good luck!

Thanks, we wont be going down that road.
In anyones experience, Would teachers want you to give them a small project/home work on bees, maybe draw pics of hives and bees or have they enough on their plates

 

[charlievictorbravo]

Would teachers want you to give them a small project/home work on bees, maybe draw pics of hives and bees or have they enough on their plates

You could ask them to learn the "Peas and Honey" poem - kids love it:

I eat my peas with honey;
I've done it all my life,
It makes the peas taste funny,
But it keeps them on the knife.

CVB

 

[bpmurray]

If you can get an observation hive, that works really well - live bees and a bunch of enthusiastic kids works better when at least one of the parties is isolated behind glass.