I'm chaperoning a school field trip to the farm, and the kindly beekeeper just spent twenty minutes explaining the life and life cycle and structure and products of the hive. And then at the end he asked, "So what's something we just learned?" and 19 fourth-graders hollered in unison, "BEEEEEEES!"
He made the mistake of letting them taste honey directly from a hive screen at the beginning of the presentation, and they have tried to eat everything he's shown them since.
"A summer bee only lives six to eight weeks," he says, and a kid in the group yells, "THAT'S TOUGH!"
There were a lot of shouted suggestions for bee names, 95% of which were the names of Patriots or Red Sox players, so I asked one of the kids who Mac Jones is and silenced the entire class. (So they could all stare at me.)
(Even my daughter fell silent.)
(From shame, I think.)
"What do we do when our hypothesis is disproven?" asks the farmer.
"WE CRY!" shout two kids together.
The farmer uses the acronym SWANS as a mnemonic for what plants need to grow, and asks the kids what they think each letter stands for.
S is for Sun!
W is for Water!
A is for ... Affection?
Another of the farmers poses a question, and a child answers with a rambling (and incorrect) monologue.
"You're on the right path," says the farmer kindly.
"I'M ON A PATH!" shouts the child happily.
I have no idea what's happening anymore, but the farmer presenting about compost just asked whether the kids think bones are compostable, and instead of answering, all 19 kids started chanting, "BONES BONES BONES! BONES BONES BONES!" and dancing.
