Lesson Plan - Sweet News for Honeybees

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Learning Objective

Students will understand why bees are important pollinators and learn about efforts to protect them from a deadly disease

Text Structure

Problem and Solution

Content-Area Connections

Life Science

Standards Correlations

CCSS: RI.3.1, RI.3.2, RI.3.3, RI.3.4, RI.3.5, RI.3.6, RI.3.7, RI.3.8, RI.3.10, L.3.4, SL.3.1

NGSS: From Molecules to Organisms

TEKS: Science 3.10

1. Preparing to Read

Watch a Video: Powerful Pollinators

Discuss: How do bees, butterflies, and some other animals help plants produce fruits and vegetables?

Preview Words to Know

Project the online vocabulary slideshow and introduce the Words to Know.

  • vaccine 
  • immunity 
  • potential


Set a Purpose for Reading

Point out the “As You Read” question. Have students identify details about how scientists give medicine to a hive.

2. Close-Reading Questions

1. Why does the author mention different foods at the beginning of the article? The author mentions apples, tomatoes, almonds, and broccoli as examples of foods that come from plants pollinated by bees. This helps show that bees are important.

(RI.3.5 AUTHOR’S PURPOSE)

2. What is the meaning of the word infected? What clues in the article help you figure it out? The word infected means having an illness or a disease. The phrases “caused by a germ” and “the disease can move quickly from hive to hive” provide clues.

(RI.3.4 WORD MEANING)

3. How did scientists deliver the vaccine’s protection to baby bees? Scientists delivered protection to baby bees by feeding the vaccine to worker bees, which then fed it to the queen bee. The queen bee passed the protection from the disease on to her babies.

(RI.3.3 SEQUENCE)

3. Skill Building

FEATURED SKILL: Build Vocabulary

Use the Skill Builder “Bee Basics” to have students use key vocabulary from the article in a crossword puzzle.

(RI.3.4 DOMAIN-SPECIFIC VOCABULARY)

Differentiate & Extend

Multilingual Learners
Explicitly teach words in the article that have multiple meanings, like side (“a side of broccoli”), face (“face big dangers”), and pass (“pass immunity . . . to their babies”).


Striving Readers
Remind students that compound words are made up of two or more smaller words. Challenge them to find at least two compound words in the article (like honeybees and beekeepers).


Bonus Video
Watch the bonus video, “Newsie’s Challenge: Protecting Our Planet,” to expand your students’ exploration of Earth’s environment and creatures.

Text-to-Speech