We know the saying "as busy as a bee," but we don't know how bees play. Scientists found one way. They did tests on bees and found they liked playing with small balls. The bees played like humans. Young bees played with more balls than old bees. Adult males played with balls for longer than females did.
There were 45 bumblebees in the tests. They had two choices. One was to go straight to a sugary treat. The second was to get to the treat after going around small balls. Most of the bees played with the balls first. A researcher said bees have feelings. She added that the minds of insects are more advanced than we thought.
Try the same news story at these levels:
Bees and Balls - Level 1, Bees and Balls - Level 2 or Bees and Balls - Level 3
Sources- https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/oct/27/bumblebees-playing-wooden-balls-bees-study
- https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ball-rolling-bumble-bees-just-wanna-have-fun/
- https://www.science.org/content/article/are-these-bumble-bees-playing-toys
Make sure you try all of the online activities for this reading and listening - There are dictations, multiple choice activities, drag and drop activities, sentence jumbles, which word activities, text reconstructions, spelling, gap fills and a whole lot more. Please enjoy :-)