Bee sensory play tray is a fun invitation to learn numeracy with beehive counting cards while promoting fine motor skills in preschoolers and kindergarteners.
Beehive counting cards can help your preschooler learn 1:1 correspondence in a fun hands-on way. Besides, this bee sensory play tray should not take you long to set up since you will be using items from your kitchen. Most importantly, while learning about honey bees, pollination, and beehives, your child is also advancing fine motor control and is practicing counting and number recognition.
WHAT you’ll need for this Bee Sensory Play Tray:
- a tray to contain your sensory play
- sensory bin filler (we are using dried chickpeas)
- a Safari Ltd Bee (from the Life Cycle of the Honey Bee)
- tongs
- beehive counting cards (print the PDF, then aminate each page and cut out each card)
- yellow recycled bottle caps and toilet paper roll
- pom poms
- numerals (we are using Montessori wooden numerals but you can use any numbers you have or these ones)
HOW to present this play tray with beehive counting cards :
To begin with, place your sensory filler in a tray. I am using dried chickpeas. (The best part is that after playing you can wash dried legumes, and they are ready for cooking.) Then, present to your child a card at a time and offer to find a corresponding wooden numeral. (At about two years old, start with just three cards, one through three, and then gradually increase the number of cards as the child masters the previous numerals).
Also, to reinforce the numeral to quantity association, invite your child to place a piece of honey-comb cereal on each hexagonal prismatic wax cell on a card. Remember, children need to practice: 1:1 correspondence, which is the ability to match an object to the corresponding number and recognize that a number is a mere symbol to represent a quantity! Young children need to practice it often since this concept is not innate to them. Besides, little ones often learn “rote counting” without having an understanding of 1 : 1 correspondence! For example, they learn to count till ten just like a heart-learned poem!
So, PRACTICE-PRACTICE-PRACTICE! Have them COUNT aloud each piece of cereal as they TOUCH it, corresponding to its numeral! You may offer tongs to further promote fine motor skills.
Recycled TPR Honeycomb Puzzle
Moreover, for some puzzle fun, create a honeycomb from cut toilet paper rolls, resembling the exact patterns as shown on the card. Puzzles are an amazing tool to advance spatial awareness (a cognitive skill that requires an organization of the knowledge of objects in relation to oneself as well as in relation to each other), logical reasoning, and problem-solving skills! To make the strips, I simply cut the recycled toilet paper roll in about half an inch pieces. Next, place recycled yellow bottle caps inside each cut-strip to hold your pollen – aka pom-pom. Thereafter, to practice small muscles of the hand, offer tongs to transfer the exact quantity of pom-poms into each bottle cap as the number on the card indicates.
Please, always supervise your children.
Safari Ltd Toys That Teach:
And, no bee study is complete without an amazing bee replica. Besides, we are using @safariltd bee from a Bee Lifecycle set, which is meticulously made, an amazingly detailed hand-painted replica set! Safari Ltd models are scrupulously made from quality-safe, phthalates-FREE and lead-FREE materials to resemble a real thing. From research to meticulous artwork, each authentic quality figurine goes through a detailed process before it reaches your child! Remember, children are learning by doing! Most importantly, they cannot learn what they do NOT do! Children need to touch, manipulate, transfer, and squeeze! “What the hand does, the mind remembers,” said Dr. Maria Montessori. So, offer them the utmost artistic and precise replicas – Toys That Teach and get 15% OFF your ENTIRE ORDER – purchase HERE! By doing it, YOU are setting multidimensional real-life opportunities for your child to learn and play! And these simple to set up sensory bins will have a long term effect on your child’s cognitive, social and physical development!
With the highest regard, this Chickpeas Bee Safari Ltd Play Tray is a sponsored post with Safari Ltd. All opinions are my own and 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.
Would you like more?
Want more Bee Sensory Play Tray ideas?
Have you downloaded my NEW eBook THE BASICS? It has everything you need to know to get started on your Montessori journey, as well as a CURRICULUM outline reference guide, the order of lessons, and the age when they should be introduced, in my opinion. See details HERE.
Also, to get access to the BEEHIVE COUNTING CARDS and over 60 printables, check out HERE Homeschooling Montessori MADE-EASY membership in case you are exhausted from swimming in the vast ocean of irrelevant information and saving activities you never get to! And if you sign UP, the eBook is included in the package amongst MANY other perks!
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