This Bee Matching activity is a fun one to practice color identification and color matching as well as discussing the Rosh Hashanah symbol of bees and honey. I was so excited to make these adorable little wooden bees and even more excited to see my kids enjoy matching the bees with the corresponding colored honeycomb.
What You’ll Need
- Different colored bee figurines. We DIYed ours with products from Woodpeckers Crafts. We used the 7/8″ round wooden balls and the 1/2 round wooden balls, glue gun, black sharpie, and acrylic paint. Use WithLoveIma5 for a discount if you order from Woodpeckers!
- Honeycomb insert, bought or DIYed
- Tongs
- Crayons in same colors as your bees
- Yellow paper, optional
- Scissors
Putting It Together
- First we made our colored bee figurines. I painted each set of 7/8″ and 1/2″ Woodpeckers Crafts wooden balls with matching acrylic paint. Once dry, I drew the bee stripes and smile with black sharpie. I painted the bee wings and eyes with white acrylic paint. Then I used a glue gun to glue the bee heads to their bodies. I absolutely love these and don’t think they were all that time consuming. But if you don’t want to go the DIY wooden route, you can use pom poms or even printed bees on cardstock!
- Set up your honeycomb insert. I purchased one of these but you could easily make one out of cardboard.
- To make a paper beehive that fits over the insert tape two pieces of yellow construction paper together. Cut the top of the paper so it was rounded like the top of the beehive. Set the honeycomb insert in the middle of the paper and use an exacto knife to cut out the honeycomb pieces from the paper. Then put the insert in your sensory table and tape the paper beehive on top.
- Color the honeycomb openings the same colors as your wooden bees.
- Then invite the kiddos to use the tongs to transfer one bee at a time to its matching colored honeycomb hole in the beehive.
Finished & Loving It!
First off, can I kvell about these wooden bees? I am SO in love with them! When my husband walked by as I was painting the wings he said “wow, those look great!” And yes, I did a happy smug smile because I really do love them. They’ve been sitting on our High Holiday Shelfie this past week as cute Rosh Hashanah decorations but they are totally usable for play and developmental activities as well, as this activity shows!
The kids were all about this activity. They were excited to match the bees with the correct color. Well, except for the toddler. He just wanted to dump them in whichever hole he wanted. And I was fine with that. I had hoped to practice some color identification, matching and articulation with him but he wasn’t into it. He practiced his fine motor skills and he had fun and that was more than enough for me. I like to leave activities like this out for a few days. I look forward to revisiting the activity, maybe while the big siblings are at school, and working one-on-one with him with these other goals in mind.
This activity is a great fine motor activity. The tongs take practice, hand strength, and fine motor skill to maneuver. The kids found that the wooden bees were not the easiest to just pick up and move with the tongs. The wooden bees were much harder than a soft manipulative, such as pom poms. They had to make sure to grip the body of the bee. They also had to maneuver it into the honeycomb hole. This takes lots of concentration and focus and I loved watching them figure it all out.
While the kids were transferring the bees, we talked about the different colors. We also worked on our articulation of each color name as part of our speech therapy practice. And of course we talked about why bees were a Rosh Hashanah symbol! We also happily shared all the sweet wishes for the new year we had for ourselves, our family, and our many little bee friends!
My kids were happy little bees exploring this activity and I was a happy Queen Bee watching them have such a fun time!
We have a whole page dedicated to the High Holidays, our High Holidays Hub. Check it out! It includes some of the High Holidays activities we do this year, as well as the activities we’ve done in previous years.
And don’t forget our Rosh Hashanah Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards, our Yom Kippur Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards, or the High Holidays Montessori-Style 3 Part Card Bundle, all a wonderful way to introduce High Holidays!
The following sites are amazing resources for learning more about this holiday:
Chag Sameach!!
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[…] figurines. Last year we made these adorable bee figurines using Woodpeckers Crafts (use WithLoveIma5 for a discount!) products and I absolutely adore them! […]