“Honey is sweet, and so is knowledge,
but knowledge is like the bee that made that sweet honey,
you have to chase it through the pages of a book.”
-Thank You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco
This bee craft is part of this month’s Family Dinner Book Club, which doesn’t post until the 15th, but I had so much fun with it that I just had to share it with you early. I love the analogy of knowledge and bees so I wanted to include some sort of bee craft to go with this book.
I searched online and found several bee crafts, and then I saw a photo of a bee made out of circles. Drawing circles and spirals is an activity that helps young Trisha, who is dyslexic, learn how to write letters and numbers. Sit with your child and draw or paint circles together. Then cut out a few of the circles and glue them together to make a bee body. I have noticed in the girls, and I’m sure it’s true of most kids, that they become so proud of the things they create. We have two walls in our dining room that are adorned only with the crafts they have done.
I wanted to provide a printable template for you to make the bees at home so I started looking around my house for circles to trace. I used the top and bottom of a pint glass. The top for the bee body and the bottom for the bee head. Then I got to thinking about everything else in my kitchen and wondered if I could make all the bee parts out of kitchen items. After a few minutes of opening drawers, I found all the bee pieces I needed right in my kitchen. Pint glass, pie server, chopsticks, and spoons. I got such a kick out of this!
You can click the stencil to print it out on a regular letter-sized paper, or freehand the shapes. Katie’s bee actually ended being my favorite because she put on one of the wings upside down so her bee has more character. My hand slipped when I was cutting out a pair of wings and I made an accidental notch. I thought the notched wings were cute so I added a notch line to the stencil. Please feel free to use my stencil, but also please feel empowered to freehand the bee, or encourage your kids to draw the bees themselves. The best artwork we have in our home are the pieces that are completely unique and handmade, not the ones that were copied from patterns or stencils.
What a fun craft!