White paper plates can be used to create bumblebee hand puppets. Have each preschooler paint a paper plate yellow and let it dry. Add stripes with black paint or markers. Use paint, markers or googly eyes to put a face on the bee. Trace each child's feet on wax paper, cut out the tracings for wings and attach the wings to the plate. Cut a triangle out of black paper and attach it to the back of the bee as a stinger. Complete the craft by attaching a strip of cardboard to each plate so the preschoolers can easily manipulate their bee hand puppets.
The ever-useful empty toilet paper roll can be transformed into a 3-D bumblebee. With a pencil, draw equally spaced lines around the toilet paper tube for the bee's stripes. Have the preschoolers paint yellow and black alternating stripes for the bee's body. Draw on eyes and a mouth at one end of the tube with a black marker. Make wings by cutting circles out of wax paper, folding them in half and taping them to the top middle part of the tube. Cut out a small triangle from black construction paper for the bee's stinger.
Your classroom will be humming with activity after students make balloon bees. Blow up a yellow balloon for each child. Instruct the children to use a black marker to draw eyes, a mouth and stripes on the balloon. Play "Flight of the Bumblebee" by Rimsky-Korsakov, and let your preschoolers fly their "bees" around the room or even on the playground.
While people traditionally blow eggs at Easter, these bee eggs could be created any time of the year. After blowing the eggs, let the preschoolers paint half of the egg in bright yellow, stand it on a bottle cap to dry and then paint the other half yellow. Center the face on either hole and paint on features. Kids can paint on a big red smile, black eyes and black stripes. Glue on white tissue paper wings. Use fishing line to hang the bees from the ceiling.