>Kenn Tuckey, Edmonton, Alberta wrote,
>Young chidren have a very short attention span.  To overcome this I have used
>the following with them.  When they start to get restless I would show them a
>complete frame - either with foundation or drawn out.  Then, with the children
>in small groups, I would pass out new frame parts to each group.  Then I would
>ask each group to put the parts together the same way that I would in my shop.
 
I haven't much experience :)(either as a beekeeper or as a 'demo person')
 but...when I showed my son's first and second grade class my 'girls' I
handed out little pieces of beeswax to hang onto and smell and feel while I
talked. I also asked them to do a taste test (pepsi challenge move over!)
between 2 different kinds of honey (late season and early season)(done with
those little saltine crackers)when they went back to their classroom
(worked into their math class).And I talked a little about why the flavour
was so different. It's been months but they still talk to me about my bees
when I show up to pick my son up. It helped to that one of the boys was
allergic and brought along his epi-pen and I had my epi-pen there too. The
scary part was talked about pretty openly, while a bee investigated the
honey on my ungloved hands.(no-one screamed or ran away :)!)( she for her
part grinned at them and showed them how beautiful she was. whatta bee!) Oh
and I gave them little tiny bits of wax  I had melted into little tiny
decorative muffin tins for them to keep.(looked like little blossoms)
 In Canada our national beekeeping council have just produced a new
teachers packet (in french & another in english) to be used for in
classroom instruction, but I only got it after the field trip. It looks
very good.
                                      hope this helps! nancy.
P.S. I really love that frame assembly 'race' idea! thanks!