#SSDecisionMaking: Which Wildflower Would You Choose?

Welcome to our new series of elementary interactive decision-making lessons. This lesson involves making decisions about choosing wildflowers and reading the children's book: Please Please the Bees by Gerald Kelly. 
Before Reading: Ask students to look at the image and make a prediction about how a bear, bees, honey, and wildflowers might go together in a story. Encourage students to ask questions about the relationships in the image. 

During Reading:
Here are some Read Aloud Think Aloud questions to use with the story. Possible stopping points are listed to use with the embedded video below.

1. Stop at :40 and ask: What were Benedict Bear's wants? What goods did he like?
2. Stop at 1:17 and ask:  What was the problem?  Why do you think the bees went on strike?
3. Stop at 2:24 and say: Flowers are a natural resource that bees use to make honey. What flowers should Benedict Bear plant? 
4. Stop at 2:37 and ask: What work did the bees do before they went on strike?
5. Stop at 3:10 and ask: What tools and equipment did Benedict Bear need to do his work?
6. Stop at 3:56 and ask: How did Benedict and the bees trade goods and services? What goods did Benedict like? What services did the bees provide? 

After Reading:
​1) What was real in this story? What was not real? Now read the Once Upon a Bee-conomy to explore and learn more about the connections with Benedict Bear, the bees, honey, and wildflowers!

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2) Next, we have created two interactive decision-making lessons in Nearpod.
Here is the editable link ​​ for the first lesson, which is appropriate for K-2. If you start your own free Nearpod account, you can edit the lesson to serve your needs. ​Otherwise, you can use the embedded lessons below as activities, as if you were showing a PowerPoint. 

Picking Wildflowers
The Picking Wildflowers activity is appropriate for grades upper elementary and middle school students. Here is the editable link ​.

More Resources:
Here is a collection of more resources to use with this topic. Enjoy exploring and creating some exciting investigations with your students!