Garden Pollinator Café
Log in to saveKids match pretend bees and butterflies to the flowers and foods they need, discovering how pollinators help gardens grow. A colorful, tactile introduction to pollination.
Choose your version
Every level teaches the same core idea — pick the one that fits your time, budget, and energy today.
Setup
Gather paper flowers, pipe cleaners, cotton balls and clear a small work surface. Read the Garden Pollinator Café mission aloud, then place the supplies where children can choose and compare them safely.
Activity
- Look at pictures of bees and butterflies visiting flowers and discuss what each pollinator is looking for.
- Build a small café of paper flowers, each matched to a pretend pollinator's favorite food.
- Move the pipe-cleaner pollinator from flower to flower, discovering it drops its cotton-ball pollen along the way, and talk about why that happens.
- Present the café menu, matching each pollinator to its flower and food and explaining why pollinators matter.
Done when: Children complete the core mission and the café menu, matching each pollinator to its flower and food and explaining why pollinators matter.
Materials
paper flowers, pipe cleaner bees or butterflies, cotton ball pollen, small trays
Shown for the Quick Start version — switch tabs above to see what changes.
Steps
- Look at pictures of bees and butterflies visiting flowers and discuss what each pollinator is looking for.
- Build a small café of paper flowers, each matched to a pretend pollinator's favorite food.
- Move the pipe-cleaner pollinator from flower to flower, discovering it drops its cotton-ball pollen along the way, and talk about why that happens.
- Present the café menu, matching each pollinator to its flower and food and explaining why pollinators matter.
Standards it satisfies
NGSS · 2-LS2-2
Develop a simple model that mimics the function of an animal in dispersing seeds or pollinating plants.