This simple honey bee activity is not only a fun dramatic play idea for young learners but also can be used to build fine motor, math, science, and language arts skills. Also, look at my post Fascinating and Fun Honey Bees Unit Study and Lapbook for Kids.
Who knew a couple empty toilet paper rolls could do so much?
Homeschooling never needs to be expensive or complicated.
Let me show you some ideas, share a few facts, and teach you how to make a toilet paper roll honeycomb.
Honey bees are important to our food supply and even very young children can learn about their life cycles, the contributions they make to our food (including their delicious honey).
And they can learn about other products they produce like wax, pollen, and propolis.
As you build your honeycomb, talk about why bees build the cells in hexagons.
Did you know that this is because the hexagon shape uses the least amount of material to hold the most weight?
Bees know what they are doing and are great at geometry.
Fill your honeycomb cells with different things to represent honey, pollen, eggs, and larvae, explore what they might keep in each cell with books and videos.
Honey Bees Books for Kids
Next, look at some of these living books to use to learn about bees.
8 Honey Bees Unit Study Resources & Books
Add some of these fun resources to your bees unit study or spring unit study.
One part science, one part cultural history, and countless parts fascination, Bees: A Honeyed History celebrates the important role that these intriguing insects have played in our ecosystem throughout the ages, and today.
Part history book, part handbook, and part cookbook, this illustrated tome covers every facet of the ancient hobby of beekeeping, from how to manage hives safely to harvesting one’s own honey, and ideas for how to use honey and beeswax. Detailed instructions for making candles, furniture polish, beauty products, and nearly 100 honey-themed recipes are included. Honeybees, which are critical in the pollination of popular US produce such as almonds, apples, and blueberries, are actually not native to the Americas. The honeybee that you see dancing from flower to flower in farms and gardens originated in Europe. The introduction of the honeybee began with European colonization of the Americas; before that, wild native bees, other insects, and some birds and mammals pollinated the native flowers of the continent. The honeybee’s ability to pollinate crops, produce honey, and be easily domesticated precipitated the growth in beekeeping all over America.
Follow the flight of a honey bee as she searches for nectar to sustain her hive and, along the way, pollinates flowers to produce seeds and fruits. Nature lovers and scientists-to-be are invited to explore the fascinating life of a honey bee.
Honey Bees are fascinating creatures which have been kept by humans for centuries. Now you can explore the life cycle of the honey bee without being stung. Watch as it grows from an egg, to a larva, and to a pupa before finally emerging as a mature adult.
Always a favorite when doing any kind of nature study, there are a few pages that cover different types of bees, common nectar sources, and bee anatomy. If you don't have this set already I cannot recommend it enough for nature studies.
One of the companion books to Nature Anatomy, the farm version covers all parts of farming, machinery, and crops but it also caught my eye because it even covers Beekeeping for aspiring beekeepers. It goes over bee terminology, parts of a bee, the parts of a hive, types of bees, flower parts, and beekeeper essentials. These books really put a lot of info into compact parts.
Why do beekeepers use smoke machines when collecting honey? Can a bee really sting only once? Why do bees "dance"? In concise, detailed text and abundant illustrations that range from the humorous to the scientific, Charles Micucci offers a wide-ranging and spirited introduction to the life cycle, social organization, and history of one of the world's most useful insects.
When the Magic School Bus turns into a beehive, Ms. Frizzle's class learns firsthand about how workers, drones, and the queen bees live together. Readers will be abuzz with knowledge as they discover how honeybees find food; make a comb, honey, and beeswax; and care for their young, all from the bee's perspective.
Also, look at more hands-on activities to learn about bees.
5 More Honey Bee Activities
- Make Gold Glitter Honey Bee Slime for a memorable sensory experience while you read aloud about the amazing bee.
- Try this unique activity, Labeling Parts of a Honey Bee LEGO Fun Activity For Kids, for a new way to play with LEGO.
- Use this Bee Pollination STEAM Activity to demonstrate how bees gather and carry pollen back to the hive.
- Another fresh way to examine the parts of a bee hive are my 7 Honey Bee Activities And Explore a BeeHive With Felt Activity.
- Watch Busy Bees! | Bumblebees and Honeybees to learn more, this is a great opportunity to grab a cup of coffee while your little one watches.
In addition, add letter tiles into some of the hexagons and have your child make the sound and identify it as they pull them out or you call out the letter and have them find it in the beehive.
You can have your child remove the pompom pollen with tweezers to work on fine motor skills.
Add dice, let them roll a number and take out that many pompoms to practice a basic math skill.
Toddlers can even sort the different materials to practice one of the most basic math skills.
Finally, look at how to make how to make a toilet paper roll honeycomb.
How to Make a Toilet Paper Roll Honeycomb
You can make your honeycomb as large as you like, letting your child create a small or gigantic hive full of hexagons to fill.
Supplies:
- Empty toilet paper rolls
- yellow/gold craft paint
- Paintbrush
- Scissors
- Yellow pom poms
First, paint the outside of empty toilet paper or paper towel rolls a bright golden yellow, each tp roll makes about 5 honeycomb cells.
Set aside to dry.
Once dry, press roll flat and pinch edges firmly, open and repeat in half in the opposite direction.
Finally make a third fold pressing the edges well.
This will give the cells a hexagon shape.
I don’t worry about making it perfect for younger children.
For older kids you may want to have them measure 6 lines spaced evenly around the tube to get better dimensions.
Open roll and cut ¼” strips across.
You will need to work your creases again to move your shapes back into a hexagon.
But once you have already creased it well it should go back to shape easily.
Now you can glue the pieces together side by side to create a large hive.
Too, I like to leave them loose so that the child can build and rebuild it, changing the shape and moving things around.
This way they can be used to count as well.
Now add small balled up pieces of yellow tissue paper and yellow and white pom poms so your child can build their hive with eggs, honey, and pollen.
Include a book, magnifying glass, tweezers, and plastic bee toys to finish it off.
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