In our nature walks, we saw buzzing bees twice. That busy sight of bees working on cultivation; sparked the natural curiosity in my child. MA! Alhamdulillah!

Questions came out like these;

“Will it sting me?”

“What is she doing?”

“Is she collecting honey?”

“Honeybees suck on honey from flowers!”

“Oh she flies so fast! MA”

“Are wasps also honey bees?”

These questions sparked our interest further to begin our learning on the topic of honey bees. This topic is integrated within Science, natural studies/nature study, biology and English literacy aswell. Some learning facts fall in the realm of maths too!

Life Cycle of a Honeybee

We started the honey bee unit learning about how honey is formed, how worker bees work, and the stages of a bee’s life.

We made a poster of life cycle of the honeybee.

Things we needed;

Yellow felt paper (small piece)

Mustard and black 2/3 ply yarn (To sew the edges & bee’s detailing)

Play dough (Little)

Rice Grain (1 in qty)

Poly fills (to stuff the felt bee)

Construction paper

Yellow print A4 papers

I made the bee myself, as O wanted to indulge in free play. No wonder, play is more important! Once we were done with the felt bee, I cut the hives’s hexagon shapes using two ombré shades of yellow.

O made the hives’s orientation as per her liking. We learnt that there’s only 1 egg in each hive, so we depicted our lifecycle such that each stage is shown in each hive’s hexagon.

We used rice grain for the egg, play dough for depicting larva , the poly fills depicted pupae and we made a felt adult honey bee.

We also integrated our English writing in the lifecycle. Alhamdulillah.

O made a stages of life cut-out poster all by herself, masha Allah.

We also used our Lego Super Nature book for the bee’s model and learned the hands on information it provided for the bee’s habitat.

Honey Bees & Beehive’s Craft

We made honey bees and beehive craft in our arts’ lessons last year well. This goes really well with this unit too.

We also made origami honeybee in our play date.

Integrating Allah’s attribute Al- Hakīm

We also integrated Allah SWT name Al Hakīm in our honey bees’ learning. O used mixed media art for the bee and inculcated textured art aswell.

Hives

We did a honeybee co-op with Amna from Amiji Homeschools in which we learnt about hives. Kids got to make hexagonal hives using tangram polygons. It was fun as they learnt hives’ geometry and different shapes to make hexagonal hives.

We also integrated comprehension in English literacy that further expanded our learning of the honeybee.

At the end of the unit, our thematic unit made our cork board so vibrant with all the learning resources masha Allah.