Bee Lifecycle Sensory Bin

The lifecycle of the honey bee black bean sensory bin is an engaging small world invitation to play and learn about bees while promoting fine motor control in preschoolers and kindergarteners.

Honey Bee lifecycle sensory bin is a fun and hands-on way to teach children about the importance of bees and the role they play in our world. Especially, in light of the current bee crises, we can educate our children to help promote a thriving bee population in the future. Besides, the set up of this sensory bin should be minimal as you will be using items around your kitchen. Most importantly, with Safari Ltd Honey Bee Life Cycle your young entomologist can explore these astonishing insects without the fear of being stung!

WHAT you’ll need for this Bee Lifecycle Sensory Bin:

• a tray to contain sensory play
• sensory bin filler (we are using dried black beans)
• Safari Ltd Life Cycle of the Honey Bee (get 20% off your entire order!)
• tongs
• recycled bottle caps
• pom poms

HOW to present this Honey Bee Sensory Bin:

First, fill your play tray with a filler. We are using dried black beans which have seen its expiration date, and are thus not edible. Next, place Safari Ltd Life Cycle of the Bee randomly inside your sensory bin, and offer your child to arrange each stage in a circle starting with an egg. Notably, each lifecycle replica piece is hand-painted and amazingly detailed, made from a quality, safe, phthalates and lead-free materials! As a next step, discuss the lifecycle stages of a honey bee: from egg to larva, to pupa, and finally, to an adult honey bee. By the way, Safari Ltd Life Cycle of the Bee is a part of Safariology Life Cycles Collection which comes with educational information about each stage, so you would not have to google it!

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A close look at Safari Ltd Honey Bee Life Cycle:

1. Egg: The Queen Bee lays between 1,000 – 2,000 pinhead-sized eggs each in its own cell. The Queen is able to lay both: fertilized eggs that produce the Queens, sterile female workers, and unfertilized eggs that produce male drones. 
2. Larva: After three to four days, the eggs hatch into larvae which are fed by worker bees. A future worker bee is fed “bee bread” which is a mixture of pollen and nectar. However, a future Queen is fed a very special “royal jelly” – a substance secreted from glands in the heads of worker bees, which possesses the highest nutrient count. We all know that the Queen deserves the best!
3. Pupa: At this stage, the pupa does not eat, and it begins to lose its worm shape and starts to develop the eyes, wings, and legs of an adult bee. This stage takes six days for a future Queen (the shortest maturity timing) and eleven days for a worker bee. 
4. Honey Bee: The adult bee has different jobs and lifespans. Sterile female workers live 20 to 40 days, tend to young bees, and guide the hive entrance. Alternatively, sterile female workers can be field workers that collect pollen, nectar, and water. Drones live 30 to 90 days, and their only role is to mate with the Queen.

Real-life replicas, educational books and sensorial invitations to explore offer children meaningful opportunities to learn through play about the lifecycle of a honey bee!

Ways to adopt this sensory bin:

Moreover, you can use your Bee Lifecycle Sensory Bin to set a simple invitation to advance fine motor control by arranging recycled bottle caps in a hexagon shape. Thereafter, offer your child tongs to place yellow pom-poms -aka pollen- into each bottle cap. You can also add a math twist to this activity. Choose a number and invite your child to place that exact quantity of pom poms into bottle caps. Suggest starting from left to right. Learning left to right progression is extremely important for young children since it is how we write and read. So, with frequent practice, this progression will become natural.

Lastly, pom poms counting is a great way to reinforce 1:1 correspondence. The ability to match counters, or manipulatives, (aka pom poms) to a corresponding numeral is a part of 1:1 correspondence. Children also learn to recognize that numbers are mere symbols that represent a quantity. So, to develop this important skill, which is not innate, invite your child to touch each pom-pom as they count aloud. Proceed similarly with each numeral.

As a result, with the help of these amazing replicas and Montessori 3-Part cards, Adrian watched the astonishing metamorphosis as the bee grows from an egg, to a larva, and to a pupa before finally emerging as an adult honey bee.

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Safari Ltd Toys That Teach:

Remember, children are learning by doing! Most importantly, they cannot learn what they do not do! Children need to touch, manipulate, transfer, squeeze! So, offer them beautiful replicas Toys That Teach and get 20% OFF your ENTIRE ORDER – purchase HERE!! Through these hands-on sensory bin invitations, you are setting multidimensional real-life opportunities to learn and play which will affect the long-term cognitive, social and physical development of your child!

With the highest regard, this Black Bean Safari Ltd Play Tray is a sponsored post with Safari Ltd. All opinions are my own, from the heart. And I am so excited to collaborate with this amazing team that brings Toys That Teach to our children. You can read more about Safari Ltd ’s mission of “educating children about the importance of nature and its conservation through the joy of play” here.

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Please, always supervise your children.

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