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Supplies Used:
- Black Paper (for bee’s body)
- White Paper, Clear Plastic, or Any other stiff Transparent Material (for bee’s wings)
- 2 Oval shaped wiggly eyes, or bead (for bee’s eyes)
- 3 Small wiggly eyes, or small, black round beads, (for the 3 eyes on top of bee’s head)
- Glue (we used a Hot Glue Gun to save on time!)
- Scissors (kid safe ones, here )
- Pom-Poms in bee colors; yellow and black (we used these pompoms, and striped ones similar to these)
- Optional: Black Chenille stems (Pipe Cleaners!) to use as legs and an orange Nerf bullet to use as a band that slides onto the legs and acts as pollen (can also use an orange pipe cleaner to form a band, though we LOVE the nerf bullet option!) 🙂
The above list sounds rather long and complicated, but in actuality, it was very simple and took less than 5 minutes per bee to make, and about 5 minutes of prep to gather the materials and draw our own bee shapes on paper. We made 3 bees, so it took about 20 minutes total to make this project.
The kids have accrued many hours of playtime with these bees (3.5 hours just in the first day of use, and many more since then!), so I consider this a successful craft session and well worth making! 🙂
The kids use these bees for many things, to gather pollen off flowers real and fake, or off pictures of flowers in books. These bees are also useful in multiple games, like our *Hive Scouts Game!
🐝 I took multiple pictures below so that you may walk along with us as we completed this fun little project. 🙂
*The idea for these bee finger puppets was originally adapted from, “Arts and Crafts with Amber Lamb,” by Abeka Books, a fun book that we occasionally enjoy using for quick projects. However, my children were not partial to the simple, cartoon-ish bee puppets that would be produced in that particular project, and wanted their bees to have all 5 eyes that real bees have. NT specifically wanted his bee to be able to have pollen on its legs, so (in a habit that is common with our family), we decided to modify and enhance the project to better fit us. 🐝
🐝In an effort to encourage our children in learning the important skill of being able to follow assembly directions, we followed the assembly directions for the Abeka project, adding our own details and adaptations once those few basic steps had been completed (the exception to this being the use of hot glue instead of regular, slooooow drying glue; we needed to use our bee puppets directly after the craft was finished, and not want to wait an entire day for glue to dry, and we decided not to glue the finger band until after we added additional eyes to the bees head).
*For a fun and simple way to help teach children how to follow assembly directions, cooking and baking recipes are also a great way to learn this important skill (Legos or blocks with assembly prompts or cards can also work great…one can use a variety of materials on hand to encourage these skills)!😃
Handmade Finger Puppet Outlines that my Hubby and I made.
As you can see above, my Hubby was experimenting with different wing outlines, as he wanted the wings to resemble a real bee (which has multiple wings).
EG counting and identifying the items called for on the supply list that she needed to start the project (this is a great way to work on organizational, counting, and critical thinking skills with children). 🙂
I handled the Glue Gun, and applied the glue; instructing the children not to touch the glue gun or hot glue, and explaining that it was hot and could burn them if touched.
As I held the paper sides of the bee outline steady, the kids pressed the pom-poms down on top of the glue.
First two pom-poms glued down! 😃
I decided to use only 2, large sized pom-poms for my bee, and drew a very simple design on black paper (later, my bee would be dubbed “the queen bee” by my kiddos).😄👑🐝
*I bought our striped pom-poms on clearance at Hobby Lobby (I do not know if they still carry these types of pom-poms), but the closest I could find to an authentic bee color and large size used for my queen are these pom-poms.
🐝 Time to add wings to our bees! ⤵
👑🐝*For my “Queen Bee,” I cut wings from clear, laminated sheets. A plastic fruit carton, or any stiff, clear material could also be used. 😊
🐝 Now to add all five eyes to our bee! ⤵
🐝 I must admit that I was very happy that NT requested these additional details to make the bee as accurate to a real-life bee as possible; I felt that the kids’ desire to have accurate details on their bee puppets was quite commendable, and showed that they are learning a lot during our bee unit study! 🐝😃
🐝⤴ Looking at a picture of the eyes on a bee in our “Amazing Bees” Book by Sue Unstead (which happens to “bee” one of our very favorite bee books and featured in our Highlighted Book of the Week, here)
Next, we colored the bee’s eyes black with a twin-tip sharpie marker (*black beads could also be used instead of a wiggly eyes).
🐝⤴Bee with Black Eyes on Top of Head. The Kids decided that they wanted to leave the 2 remaining eyes on the sides of the bees head as is.
🐝⤴ Using black paper to make antennas for the bee, and adhering them to each bee with hot glue. This particular bee above had yet to have its eyes colored black….we made multiple bee puppets, since each of us made one during this crafting session, with Mama snapping pictures along the way whenever possible). 😄🐝
🐝⤴ The finger bands on the bees having been glued shut.
I did not glue the bands together with the children’s fingers in the bands, due to the hot glue aspect; the above photo is my testing to make certain they could place their fingers inside the band smoothly and safely! 🙂
🐝⤴ For each finger puppet, we cut a black, chenille stem (AKA, a Pipe Cleaner! 🙂 ) into six small pieces, as bees have six legs.
We glued the legs onto the bee, taking care to place the legs as closely as possible to the pom-poms and looking at pictures in the book, Amazing Bees, to get an idea of where to place the bees. 🐝
We cut pieces off an old Nerf bullet to form rings of pollen that would slip perfectly onto the bees chenille legs! I had saved the bullet in our loose-parts craft item box for just such a time as this, though I thought that the kids would end up using it to put a lace through or glue to something random…I never expected it to have such a wonderful use as it did with this bee puppet! 😄💖
Comparing our bees to the bee pictured on the front cover of the book, Amazing Bees, we tried the pollen band on the bee’s legs before cutting each leg down to a size that looked bit more normal in proportion to each bee. *As a side note, I mistakenly thought that bees only gather pollen on their right back leg, but, as my son pointed out and showed me in our books, bees gather pollen on multiple legs. 😄🐝
🐝 ⤴ As seen in the first photo, above and to the left, my Hubby drew lines on the wings of the bees which had white paper wings….he and the kids were not a huge fan of the plain, white wings. The lines on the wings were such a lovely addition! 🐝
The finger bee puppets are the biggest hit (as far as puppets go) that we have ever made. After this project, my kiddos frequently request a variety of puppet projects! 😄
🐝⤵ Below, you can see EG giving all three of our bees a ride in the bright green Bumbo seat….it seemed to be a flower of sorts during her play 🌻 (my kiddos use their Baby brother’s Bumbo seat for soooo many things! 😄).
🐝⤵ NT used the bees to gather pollen from some fake flowers that I placed in a vase in the center of our kitchen table.; he greatly enjoyed taking the flowers out of the vase and letting the bees gather pollen in various parts of the house (these make an amazing Morning basket/busy book page style of activity! 😊💖🐝
(We keep the bees in this little storage container so as to prevent the pollen from getting lost or falling to the floor where baby SC might find it!) 🙂
🐝I took a lot of pictures to visually walk through all of the steps, but in actuality, the assembly time for this activity was quite short; 5 minutes or less, per bee.🐝
We hope that you enjoy these pictures and feel inspired to make your own bee puppets….they are soooo much fun!!!!
If you have any questions or ideas to add to this fun little project, please feel free to comment below! I Love hearing from you! 😊💖
And, it’s on to our next lesson! I look forward to sharing it with you soon!!! 😊
~Gloria