Tapestry of Faith: Creating Home: A Program on Developing a Sense of Home Grounded in Faith for Grades K-1

Activity 4: Sending the Bees Home

Part of Creating Home

Activity time: 5 minutes

Materials for Activity

Preparation for Activity

  • Children will need the paper bees they each made in Activity 2: Beehive Poster Preparation.
  • If the children have not done Activity 3: What Bees Do at Home, be ready to prompt them with some information about bees and beehives to help them suggest some things bees do at home.

Description of Activity

Start by saying:

Let's take the bees we made and send them back to their hive. Can we name a reason why each bee might be returning home as we attach our bees to our poster? What were some of the things bees do at home that we heard in the story?

To reinforce their knowledge of the functions of a home, prompt the children as needed to guide them toward naming these reasons a bee might return to the hive:

  • To bring food
  • To eat
  • To store food
  • To sleep or rest
  • To care for the young
  • To care for the elderly
  • To find shelter (from rain, storms, heat and cold)
  • To be together (with other bees)

As each child tells why their bee is returning home, write a one- or two-word description of the reason on the stripe of the bee. Children may be opinionated about what "their" bee's reason for returning home will be; try to honor their preferences.

Attach the bees to the beehive poster with double-sided tape or another way that will make the bees easy to remove for later reference.

Including All Participants

If new participants have joined the group for this session, you may wish to provide them with a name stone and materials to decorate it before this activity; they can decorate their name stones while you add paper bees to the hive poster.