Last week, we enjoyed a number of bee sensory activities in the lead-up to World Bee Day on May 20, 2024. We love bees and find learning about them to be fascinating, especially when we learn through play.
1. Dandelion Playdough Treats
We kicked-off our bee play week with a playdough invitation using Dandelion Playdough from Readymade Play Canada. We made some dandelion and honey ice creams, popsicles and pies for ourselves and the bees. Some fresh dandelions topped off our creations.
Materials
- Dandelion Dough and Honeybee Cutters – Readymade Play Canada (save with code PLAY 10)
- Yellow Door Let’s Roll Seasons, Within & Co Signature 55 Mat – Sewing Seeds Play (save with code HOUSEOFPLAY10)
- Honey Pot Wood Tray – AW & Co. (save with code HOUSEOFPLAY10)
- Play Pie Shells & Wood Toppers – Stars & Sensory
- Ice cream scoop, ice cream cones, wood popsicles, wood cherries – from Eye Spy Club and Cjeco-Play Ice Cream Play Kit
- Resin Bees – Playspiration
2. Bee Sensory Play
Next, we set up a sensory bee invitation to play on our IKEA Flisat table. My kids are very interested in bees and love to learn about them. We’ve read the book, “Discover the Busy World of the Beehive” many, many times. The kids like that it talks about the different types of bees and the various jobs they are responsible for in the hive.
This bee sensory invitation to play provided lots of hexagons, honeycomb shapes and sensory textures for the exploration of bee concepts. The kids enjoyed scooping and pouring the DIY sensory mix into the flisat insert and the other containers provided. However, putting everything into the woven beehive was definitely the highlight of this activity. My 3 year old wanted the bees to be “cozy” in their hive.
Materials
- Discover the Busy World of the Beehive – Amazon
- Felt bees and beehive, bee kaleidoscope – Sewing Seeds Play (save with code HOUSEOFPLAY10)
- Wood insert, honeycomb trays, bee scoop and honeycomb spoon – Little Dreamers Collection
- Resin honeycomb pieces – Dreamy Ink Art
- Beehive – Dollarama
- Grimm’s wood stacking bowls
- Sensory Mix – DIY
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3. Slime Bee Honey Play
My 5 year old daughter is in her slime era – she loves the feel of slime. When I saw this adorable honey slime kit from Olive Eve and Co, I knew it would be a huge hit with the kids. I added some of our other resin bee treasures and containers to compliment the kit. We also added our Kidfolk and Co. yellow slime from Easter (which is still stretchy, slimy and fun) and the kids enjoyed exploring the different textures of the 2 slimes. One was more gooey and the other, stretchy. They enjoyed going from one to the other and mixing the two together.
Materals
- Slime Kit (honey slime, slime add-ins, resin honeycomb plates, honey pot stamp, bees, honey stick) – Olive Eve and Co.
- Within and co Signature 55 Mat – Sewing Seeds Play (save with code HOUSEOFPLAY10)
- Yellow(ish) opaque slime – Kidfolk and Co.
- Resin beehive, bees, pots, plate, spoon – Playspiration
4. Mud Kitchen Dandelion Coffee
Dandelions are the perfect addition to mud kitchen play. They are abundant at this time of year, easy to pick and the petals can be taken off the flowers to mix into various “delicious” concoctions. My kids and their friend came up with this creation – Dandelion Coffee. It was made using soil, water and, of course, dandelion petals. This is a great, messy play activity to do outdoors on a nice day – plus, it’s free.
5. Beekeeping Small World Play
On Monday, May 20th we celebrated World Bee Day and the theme for 2024 was “Bee engaged with Youth.” The theme recognizes the importance of involving and teaching youth about bees and beekeeping – as they are the future stewards of our environment.
My kids (3 and 5 years old) are fascinated by bees and what takes place in a beehive. We have a community beehive outside our house and the kids like to visit and ask questions. With the help of some of our favourite small shops, I made a small world beekeeping tray to further explore the topic. There was a beehive box with a beekeeper, some flowers with pollen pom poms, a lake for a bee water source and some of our hexagon trays and pieces to represent inside the beehive. I also included a pasta honeycomb and some sensory fillers that the kids could scoop and fill, use as honey, pollen, nectar, or whatever their imaginations desired.
The sensory mix fillers were DIY. The filler in the yellow tray is a mixture of rice, lentils, dry chick peas, dry corn and pasta flowers. Everything is it’s natural colour – I didn’t paint anything. The filler in the wooden bowls is yellow split peas.
I pasta honeycomb was also a DIY, made out of dry rigatoni pasta for an extra sensory element. I just used hot glue to secure the pasta pieces together. My kids found the honeycomb satisfying to break apart, which I did not love, but managed to tolerate. It’s just pasta and glue and I can always make another.
This tray was a great way to explore what bees do everyday and all the busy jobs they get up to. There is so much to appreciate about bees!
Materials
- Felt bees, beehives, tulips, and bee kaleidoscope – Sewing Seeds Play (save with code HOUSEOFPLAY10)
- Wood beehive and beekeeper – Earth & Pine and Stars & Sensory
- Resin honeycomb hexagons – Dreamy Ink Art
- Resing honeycomb plates – Olive Eve and Co.
- Wood honeycomb trays – Little Dreamers Collection
- Felt lily flowers – Lovevery
- Bee sensory mix and pasta honeycomb – DIY
- Tuff Tray – Scholar’s Choice
