Let’s Get Buzzing About World Bee Day

I did a post all about bee learning activities last year, not realizing that May 20 is World Bee Day. So let’s gather some more fun activities to do with bees or with a bee theme, for World Bee Day or any day.

First, learn some fun bee facts from American Bee Journal. Here’s one I didn’t know: a bee would have to travel about 90,000 miles, or three times around the globe, to produce a pound of honey, but that bee would only need an ounce of honey to fuel a trip around the world.

Rock Your Homeschool has some fun bee-themed worksheets, including a word search, bee life cycle, anatomy and information on how bees make honey.

Living Life and Learning also has some great printable cards for the life cycle of a bee.

Feed the bee and learn the beginning sounds of words with this cute printable alphabet game from Miniature Masterminds.

How Wee Learn has a printable set of bee-themed alphabet cards (free with email address) and a great collection of other crafts and activities to check out.

Stay at Home Educator has a nice set of printable bee counting cards you can use for working on one to one correspondence. Use little bee shaped erasers, pompoms or the bees from a Honeybee Tree game (which is also fun to play when you’re doing a bee unit) as counters.

Or you can combine math and art with this dice rolling drawing game from Friends Art Lab. It’s shown just with drawing stripes on the bees but you could also do dots or other shapes or let the kids pick how to decorate them.

There’s a pollination activity in that other post, too, but I wanted to share this one from Cultivating Brilliant Minds, too. This one is a craft, a STEM activity and a snack break all in one!

Make an easy bee craft with this cut and paste printable from Crafts on Sea.

Right Click, Save to download this coloring sheet.

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Learning about Bees for Kids

Last month I shared some tips for teaching the alphabet to kids and why going in alphabetical order isn’t the best way to do it. Honestly a lot of learning at this age has to do with play, so let’s look at some fun alphabet activities that kids can do that will help them learn the alphabet.

Activities that get kids moving and learning at the same time are ideal for preschool, and Forward with Fun has a few great ideas, like this fly swatter letter recognition game (which you could also use for numbers, words, all sorts of things you’re learning) and a beginning sound stomping game.

Another fun alphabet game you can do at home or adapt for wherever you are is this printable alphabet scavenger hunt from Play Party Plan. They’ve got a list of items to find and also a blank printable you can write your own list on, or let kids write down what they find for each letter.

Or do a literal letter scavenger hunt like this one from Happily Ever Mom. This one uses the letters from an alphabet puzzle but you could also use magnet letters or just cut out shapes of letters. It also adds the fun of doing it in the dark and hunting with a flashlight, but you can also do it with the lights on if you want.

This alphabet sensory bottle from Parenting Chaos is made with a set of alphabet beads and would be fun to keep in the classroom or have in the car or for quiet times.

Use what you have to make an alphabet learning activity, like this one made with Duplo blocks from Playtivities. You can stick letters to the sides of blocks (or write them on) and just play with them, use them for letter recognition and talking about sounds, and eventually spelling and reading, too.

Turn letter learning into craft time by making a big letter out of a bunch of little letters with this activity from Meaningful Mama. If you don’t get magazines anymore check with your local Buy Nothing group, or your local library may have some they’re looking to get rid of.

I think most preschoolers love dot markers, so these free alphabet dot marker worksheets from Daydream into Reality would be a great thing to download and print out. This is a great set because it includes uppercase and lowercase letters, and some have letter tracing practice while others include something that starts with that letter that kids can color. Work with one letter at a time or the letters in the child’s name and then provide the whole set as a quiet time activity.

Another great set of alphabet worksheets that isn’t free (and would also be good for older kids) is this set from My Nerdy Teacher. These worksheets include letter tracing and recognition activities, as well as objects to color.

I also love these alphabet roads printables from Messy Little Monster, which kids can use with cars to trace the letters (they could also be playdough mats you use to form the letters in the shape shown, or trace with a dry erase marker).

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