Build a Bee Home With Your Kids - Happy International Bee Day 0

Hello bee-lovers, time to build a bee home!

While May 20^th marks International Bee Day, I think any day can be bee day. As the nicer weather rolls in, here is a fun craft you can do with children to help benefit the bees.

Bee Hotel Craft

Bee hotels are beneficial for solitary bees and wasps, both important for an ecosystem. Providing them a safe place to settle is important for your garden to help with pollination and also pest control (wasps can nom on spiders and other pests). The activity is also a great science project that allows for children to learn about pollinators up close.

This fun hands-on activity allows children to let their creativity buzz as they build a home for bees. A great DIY project to explore animal habitats and socio-environmental systems. This project utilizes materials you may already have around the home if you have children who love doing arts and crafts.

What You’ll Need:

• A can (like a soup or bean can) or a large water bottle
• Art supplies for decorating. Have fun!
• Sheets of color paper
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Tape
• Glue
• One toilet paper roll
• Twigs from outside
• Two pieces of string

Steps:

1.       Carefully remove the top off a used can or bottle. Make sure there are no sharp edges on your can and it’s completely clean and dry.

2.       Decorate the can how you’d like – stickers, paint, construction paper, etc. Let your creativity buzz. Just keep the decorations on the outside so it doesn't harm future guests.

3.       Cut the paper in half. Each piece needs to be a bit shorter than the tin can when you hold them next to each other, with a minimum of six inches.

4.       Use the pencil to roll the paper. It needs to be rolled five or six times to make the tube thick. Tape the roll so it stays and then remove pencil.

5.       Rinse and repeat making the rolls until you have enough to fill the can/bottle.

6.       Cover the bottom of the can with glue and then put the toilet paper roll inside. Put the thinner tubes in the roll and around outside. Make sure not to squish the rolls, you want the bees to fit inside.

7.       Break the twigs to fit inside the can and use them to fill in the open spaces in the can, around the toilet paper roll.

8.       Tie rope around the can, one near the top and another near the bottom. Each piece of string should be long enough to wrap around the can twice and you’ll want another 8 to 12 inches extra to hang from the tree branch.

9.       Now to go to your garden! Find a tree in a sunny part outside and tie it to a branch.

10.   Be sure to mention that it make take a while for a bee to use it as a shelter to help your child's expectations. You can plan to check the bee home occasionally to see if a guest has moved in.

Ta-da! You now have a bee hotel. Keep in mind, bee hotels are entirely for solitary bees and wasps. Each nest is owned by a single female, who lays her own eggs and gathers all the food needed for each offspring.

While bee hotels can be useful, if you’re able, the best option in your garden is to go as natural as you can, and you can do this by giving them access to a place where they can burrow underground with lightly covered soil. The bees who don’t burrow in the ground like to make use of dead wood cavities or hollow plant stems instead. The best areas for them are south or east-facing slopes. They love the sun and the slope ensures it’s well drained.

Building a bee hotel is a simple, creative way to support local pollinators and spark curiosity in young minds. Whether it's Bee Day or any sunny afternoon, this hands-on project helps kids connect with nature while giving solitary bees a safe space to thrive. Happy crafting and buzzing!

Looking for some bee-utiful picture books to read, be sure to check out:

Lola Meets the Bees
by Anna McQuinn, illustrated by Rosalind Beardshaw
HC: 9781623543839
TR: 9781623545949

Honeybee Rescue: A Backyard Drama
by Loree Griffin Burns, photographs by Ellen Harasimowicz
HC: 9781623542399

Beansprout: A Social Emotional Growth 0

Some of us at Charlesbridge decided to join Ms. Greene's classroom and try to plant our own seeds to see what grows. The experience was very much like Beansprout, written and illustrated by Sarah Lynne Ruel with successes and failures as we tried to grow some wildflowers.

By no means are we experts in growing flowers, this being a new experience for us as we challenged ourselves to do something new.

So we gathered the seeds, flower pots, and soil, and took part in our own version of Ms. Greene's experiment.

With three different size flower pots, we planted wildflowers, watered them with just the right amount of water, not too little, not too much, and with some hope (and not too much expectation), we left it to nature to decide which one of us had a green thumb.

Overall, it was successful as two got cute little buds sprouting . . . and one did not. It was definitely a wave of hope and disappointment and even a little sadness to see the others sprout and nothing much coming out of one of the pots. A calm down corner like in Beansprout would have been nice to have.

Beansprout is the perfect social emotional moment for the classroom as the students face success and  disappointment in their gardening experiments. This book ties in nicely with any gardening and agriculture curriculum while also teaching readers how to deal with their big emotions when things don't turn out how they expected.

Beansprout
Sarah Lynne Reul
Hardcover: 978-1-62354-475-1
Available Now!
$17.99

What happens when you do everything right, but it doesn’t work out? When classmates start having success with their seeds, one student's just won't sprout.

A picture book about planting and growing, where grown-ups and kids can talk about disappointment, emotions, and second chances.

It's seed-planting time in Ms. Greene's classroom! One of the kids has big predictions for their mystery seed and does everything just so to make sure it grows. But as all the other seeds start to sprout, theirs . . . doesn't. 

More Resources:
Beansprout Activity Kit
Author Panel: Celebrating Social-Emotional Learning in 2025
Tissue Paper Printing with Author-Illustrator Sarah Lynne Reul
Sarah Lynne Reul Introduces Beansprout
Support indie bookstores and buy local

Charlesbridge Holiday Gift Guide 2024: Perfect Children's Books For Your Readers 0

'Tis the season and time to search for the perfect present for children and families. For book lovers, we have a great selection. Be sure to check out our holiday gift guide for more recommendations.

Our holiday gift guide includes the perfect books for:

• Winter Holidays
• Pre-Schoolers
• Spanish Readers
• Science Lovers
• Picture Book Favorites
• Ages 8 and Up
• Storytime

Winter Holiday Gifts for Kids:

For fans of the holidays this winter, we have plenty of titles to share from Gingerbread Dreidels, celebrating both Chanukah on Christmas day. Or, maybe a classic like Latkes and Applesauce, which celebrates a special Hanukkah moment. Sometimes, plans don’t go as planned and holiday traditions are interrupted like in Just Us.

Gifts for Preschoolers:

We have a range of board books for little listeners. Indigenous titles like On Powwow Day and We Are Grateful Ostaliheliga: Seasons will captivate the little ones. Or, if they enjoy dinosaurs, they’ll love Baby Loves Paleontology. We also have a series of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Babies board books imparting life lessons, which warm the heart with heaping spoonfuls of good humor.

Gifts for Spanish Readers: 

We have an amazing collection of Spanish language books. Readers can explore superstitions in La mala suerte me sigue. They can follow along with adorable Adela as she tries to find her place in a mariachi band in Los mariachis de Adela. Nonfiction lovers can learn about axolotls in No es un monstruo. If a child has trouble speaking Spanish, they can learn how to communicate in Un graznido en espanol and that it’s okay to not be perfect, but that trying is what matters.

Science Books for Kids:

Any readers looking for women who paved the way for others will enjoy She Sells Seashells, a story about Mary Anning, an unlikely paleontologist. If a young reader loves dinosaurs, then they’ll love Dinosaurs Can Be Small. Know someone crazy for robots? They'll love How to Explain Robotics to a Grown-Up, a playful STEM picture book filled with fun facts, empowering kid experts to explore complex scientific concepts with their grown-up.

Gifts for Picture Book Faves:

We have a huge variety of picture books, many of them favorites for different reasons. If your reader loves fairy tale retellings, Mahogany is a delightful contemporary retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. Basketball fans will love the motivational picture book, If Lin Can. ARTificial Intelligence is a fn story for creative kids who also love tech. Of course, we can’t forget about unicorn fans. They’ll find delight in the father-daughter book, Giddy Up, Unicorn.

Gifts for Ages 8 and Up:

We kicked off our new middle grade fiction imprint Charlesbridge Moves this year. Hum is a llama rescue adventure for readers who love something fast-paced. Novel-in-verse lovers will enjoy Wings to Soar. And if your reader is a wild wild west fan, they'll enjoy The Kid. These books are great gifts for reluctant readers packed with adventure, engaging characters, and compelling stories. One cool feature sure to delight your reader is the poster on the other side of the cover and the QR code leading to a dedicated page with extra content to explore.

Gifts for Storytime Reads:

Lastly, we have great storytime books like Is That the Bus? exploring different vehicles and the sounds they make. There’s the rhythmic Every Here Has a There, and the action-packed picture book, Clack, Clack! Smack!, about Cherokee stickball. And, anyone who enjoys fun wordplay and food will love Pickle Words.

Once again, if you want more recommendations, please check out our holiday gift guide for a more comprehensive list.

Fall 2024 Preview Recap – Enjoy Autumn With These Children’s Books 0