Preschool Activity: Bringing Books to Life // The Beeman

I love the idea of making stories come alive and helping kids learn with hands-on activities. I hope to make this a recurring feature here on the blog :) Today's book was The Beeman. It is about a beekeeper and it explains the different types of bees and their jobs. We had honey sticks as our snack and we made a honeycomb and bees. We also talked about the letter B and decorated one I printed out here. Keep reading to find out how we made the bees...

 

To make the honeycomb and bees you will need: 

• 2 toilet paper rolls
• 2 black pipe cleaners
• 3 large yellow pompoms
• 3 small black pompoms
• gold paint ( I used Martha Stewart, it's water-based and nontoxic)
• paintbrush
• white felt
• scissors
• glue

For the honeycomb:

First flatten your toilet paper rolls, folding them in half. Cut them horizontally into equal pieces. Fold each piece into a z-shape like this:

Unfold them and they should resemble a hexagon. Paint them gold. 

Then after the paint has dried a bit, glue them all together in the shape you want your honeycomb to be. You can place clothespins on each side where the glue is to hold them together more securely if desired. Set aside to dry.

For the bees:

Wrap a pipe cleaner around the yellow pompom twice to make the bee's stripes. Secure loose ends by twisting them together on the bottom side of the bee. 

The next step is gluing on the black pompoms, or the bee's head. 

Then cut out some wings from your white felt. 

Glue them on in the center of the body and you're done! 

It also makes an adorable wall hanging :)