Video: The Giant Busy Bee Note
The routine and why we do it
As you know, we choose a Busy Bee every morning utilizing the new and improved Name Game. You can see a video of this here, but keep in mind that this is what choosing a Busy Bee looks like at the beginning of the school year. As the year goes on, it will morph to include many phonemic awareness, phonics, and orthographic mapping activities.
Each day, at the end of the day, the Busy Bee gets a “giant Busy Bee note.” I call it giant because of the size of the chart paper we use. For the giant Busy Bee note, we go through the same routine every day:
I tape a large piece of chart paper on my easel. The Busy Bee stands next to the easel with a pointer in hand.
Each day we write the same message that consists of two sentences. I write My name is _________. I am the Busy Bee.
For the first few days we carefully say each sentence and count the number of words before writing the sentence. This is good for their expressive language and phonological awareness.
I say the first word—My—and write it and then have the Busy Bee point to it with the pointer and “read” it.
Next, I say, “Kids on the floor (i.e., everyone except the Busy Bee), help me. My…” and point to where the next word will go. They quickly learn that the next word is always name and they say it.
I repeat these steps throughout the writing of the entire note. In other words, I then write what the kids on the floor tell me (name), have the Busy Bee point and read My name…, then say, “Kids on the floor, help me. My name…”, progressing through the whole note (see video).
Because the Busy Bee is practicing reading the note over and over again with one more word added for each attempt, they are almost always able to correctly point to the words and “read” the entire note at the end of the activity. We deem them ready to read the note to their family.
I remind students to get a pointer at home—finger, pencil, fork, ruler—and read the note to their family, their dog, and/or their stuffed animals. I also encourage them to ask their parents if they can hang their note on their bedroom wall. (Some students return to me a few years later and tell me that they still have their giant Busy Bee note hanging up in their bedroom or siblings will tell me that their older brother or sister has a Busy Bee note in their bedroom.)
We do this right before dismissal and the Busy Bee carries the giant note out held in front of their body so all the parents outside the classroom door can easily see who was the Busy Bee that day. It’s always an exciting time for student and parents alike.
Each student gets one giant Busy Bee note. That is, we only do this for 25(ish) days until each student has one. Then, I devote this time of day to other more timely activities, usually keeping to the social emotional learning realm.
Writing the same two sentences every day for about 25 days helps develop many concepts of print, especially the concept of "word" and voice-print match. The Busy Bee can usually step right up and be successful with pointing to words because they have watched other students do it over the last several days. This activity provides opportunities to talk about certain letters and sounds, punctuation, spaces between words, letter formation, and the spelling of words we keep seeing over and over again. I find it well worth the ten minutes it takes every day.
The video you will watch is from the 16th day of school. You will see that the students are familiar with the routine, knowing what questions I will ask and how they should answer. They are not tired or bored with this on the 16th day, nor will they be on the 25th day. They love all Busy Bee activities from day one to day 172 of school.