A Wasps Nest

For the last week or so, there has been a wasps nest in our room. The first morning that it was out, the students wanted to know what it was. Was it a duck nest? A bird nest? A piece of junk? These are all things that they wanted to know.

This morning one of the boys told me that he knew it was a wasps nest. He had asked at home and he was sure that is what it was.

At centers today I brought the wasp nest down to kid level along with magnifying glasses and a lamp and magnifying stand.

It was a rush to see who could check it out first.

They had lots of theories as to what it was and what the various holes were for and they started to talk. Could the holes let in light? Were they there to get the "bees" in and out? Were they just cracks?

They wanted to know what the nest was made of? Some said the paper was like a feather and another thought that the nest was made of wood and junk.

One of the students noticed that there were "bees" inside. They wanted to get them out. I let them use the kid tweezers and they soon discovered that they were too big. They asked if they could get smaller ones and soon two of them were off to find some smaller ones from the Science lab. They came back and after some trial and error they found they could get them out.

They looked at the "bees" under the magnifying stand to see what they look like.

We will continue to leanr about the "nest" in the coming weeks so I hope your child comes home with some questions or things that they have learned.

If you have interesting things from nature that you would be willing to donate to the room for us to look at and learn about feel free to let me know.